Luogo e data di registrazione		Lutheran Church, Haarlem (The Netherlands) - 9/12 May 1990
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer		Stephan Schellmann (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - SK 46 702 - (CD) - durata 58' 04" - (p) 1991 - DDD
	Cover Art		Mozart - Wien - G. Flurschütz, Hamburg
	Note		-

No matter how different these serenades and chamber music pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may be, all have one thing in common: the sound of the strings is colored by the addition of the natural horn, a long-forgotten instrument which, in contrast to the modern valve horn, had no valves. Thus, it was normally limited to the notes of the harmonic (partial) series; the only way a musician could produce the full diatonic or chromatic scale was to insert his right hand or fist into the bell of the instrument to play the intermediate tones. Hornists of the period were admired, their instrumental mastery and virtuosity measured, according to the unobtrusiveness with which they managed to correct the tones, and to change between the open and stopped notes. From his youth to the end of his life, Mozart seems to have known and esteemed one master of the natural horn in particular: Joseph Leutgeb (or Leitgeb), hornist in the Salzburg court orchestra who was a friend of the family not only since 1763,but also after his move to Vienna in 1777. However, the three Marches K. 445, 248 and 290, all composed for two horns, two violins, viola and double bass, had no connection with Leutgeb, but rather with the old Austrian tradition of the serenade, which was still quite vigorous in the Salzburg of Mozart's time. A serenade was an outdoor evening concert; the divertimento announced its origin in its very title: it came from the French dívertíssement, “entertainment, diversion”. The music they offered reflected “charm and grace in a gay, cultivated, unproblematical form”. (Günther Haußwald). When musicians set out for a serenade, they played a march, later retiring to the same music. As these marches were often used several times, they were seldom handed down with the serenade they accompanied. This is the case of the March in F major, K. 248, for example, although its date of composition, key, and instrumentation leave no doubt that it accompanied the Divertimento K. 247, written in Salzburg in June, 1776, and which became known as the “First Lodronian Nachtmusik,” as it was most likely composed for the name day of the Countess Antonia Lodron. With the March in D major, K. 290, the situation is similar: though we assume it was composed in the summer of 1772, it is not known what pieces it originally accompanied. It is possible, however, that Mozart used this march again a year later in connection with the Divertimento in D major, K. 205, composed in 1773, because this is the only other work of Mozart's to be instrumented for one violin, viola, double bass, and two horns. The situation of the March in D major, K. 445, is not significantly clearer: though no date of composition can be ascertained, research has associated it with “Robinig's Music”, that is the Divertimento in D major, K. 334, which was probably written for Sigmund von Robinig in 1779 or '80. In any event, the historical context of these marches is less important than the originality and stylistic variety which seem to speak against their being randomly interchangeable, though we know that this indeed was the practice. Mozart supposedly composed the Quintet in E sharp major, K. 407, for horn, violin, two violas and cello in Vienna in late 1782: it is thought to have been for Joseph Leutgeb, or to have been conimissioned by him. It is less a piece of chamber music than a “pocket concerto” for a virtuoso player, for here the wind instrument is instrumental in every sense of the word. Only with the violin is there anything approaching a true dialogue in all the three movements of the quintet; and in keeping with the tonal character of the horn, the music is predominantly cantabile and sonorous, displaying, in the Allegro finale, a sly humor without delving to unusual depths. Nor should we expect great profundity in the four duos taken from K. 487. On the first sheet of the autograph manuscript, by the way, is the note: “By Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, Vienna, the 27th of July, 1786, while playing bowls. ”What was begun during a game of bowls (with whom?) in 1786 ultimately grew to a series of twelve duos, instruments unspecified. Today, we know that these occasional compositions are “cunning little virtuoso pieces” (Dietrich Berke) for two horns, pieces that indeed demand the utmost from their interpreters. Did Mozart have the abilities of his friend (and bowling companion) Joseph Leutgeb in mind when he sketched out these duos, or those of another hornist? The question will remain open. Open questions also surround the two divertimento fragments K. 288 and 246b. To judge from the manuscript, the latter, in D major, probably dates from 1772 or '73; it cannot, however, be connected in any way with the following item, K. 247, a divertimento in F major that was only composed in June, 1776. In fact, it would be easier to argue for an association with K. 288, a fragment of an allegro divertimento movement in F major: both the key and an analysis ot the manuscript seem to indicate the summer of 1776 as the date of composition, which speaks for this possibility; the instrumentation, for one violin, speaks against it. Considerations of this kind are superfluous with the composition which Mozart described on June 14, 1787 in his personal list ofworks as “A Musical Joke; composed of an Allegro, Minuet and trio, Adagio and Finale.” The instrumentation, with two violins, viola, double bass and two horns, is familiar from his serenades, but this Musical Joke, K. 522, only the form belongs to this genre, for this ingenious composition is a sharp parody of bungling composers. The title occasionally given the work, The Village Musicians' Sextet, conceals this intention completely; for the score mercilessly exposes, not the village musician, but Mozart's contemporary composers, for the most of which he held no high opinion - with justification, as we know. Just four movements were sufficient for their musical caricature, during which one original idea follows on the heels of the other. The piece teems with harmonic impossibilities, unintended dissonances, meaningless repetitions, and inconsistent dynamic “effects”, not to mention the famous solo cadenza: here, at the end of the Adagio cantabile third movement, the first violin tries to show off - only to wind up hopelessly lost in a dead-end series of whole tones that completely “explodes” the key structure: a spirited “musical joke” indeed - that Mozart meant in bitter ernest. Ekkehart Kroher (Translation: Griffin Anderson)