Mozart-Concertone K.190, Pleyel-Sinfonie Concertante

[Scion7]

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This is a great record - I don't think Columbia issued it on CD in the same combination - I did a few searches, and it appears the Concertone is available in a box-set retro for Stern ...
The USA Columbia Masterworks pressing out of NY was very good on mine - of course, I immediately cleaned it and put it in a plastic-lined sleeve when I bought it 30-some yarons ago,
so it has 'preserved.'

            from Gramophone, December 1974:

MOZART. Concertone in C major for two violins, oboe, cello and orchestra, K190*.
PLEYEL. Sinfonie Concertante in B flat major for violin, viola and orchestra, Op. 29t.
Isaac Stern5t, Pinchas Zukerman' (violins), Nell Black' (oboe), Pinches Zukerznant (viola), English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. CBS 76310 (2-79).

Cancer one—selecled comparison:
Soloists, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Marriner (1/73) ZRG729

In the autumn of last year Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman and Daniel Barenboim, fresh from giving concerts in Israel after the October War, performed these same works at the Royal Festival Hall. Tired as the principal performers plainly were, they played with an extra emotional intensity, and something of that quality now comes over in this record made at that time in the CBS Studios in central London.
One big difference of course is in the acoustic. Even the Festival Hall has a more glamorous sound than is given here. It comes as quite a shock to play this version of the teenage Mozart's ambitiously long Goncertone after that of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, recorded in the gracious surroundings of St John's, Smith Square. The performance there helped by a glowing acoustic is all elegance, where this one with its dryness and close balances jabs at you. It would be very easy to dismiss this new account, and certainly anyone who wants charm in early Mozart should go to the Argo/Marriner disc, but there are arguments the other way.
The dryness of acoustic could quite easily be taken to reflect the acoustic of concert halls in Mozart's day. I cannot imagine the Hanover Square Rooms being any less dry than this, while it is a compliment to Mozart and his undoubted ambitions that even his early music can have its element of toughness. Each one of these principals, not to mention Neil Black, matching their artistry superbly in the important oboe part, is a very positive personality, and from the very start they make no apologies. You might argue that in the outer movements Barenboim presses on too urgently—his tempo in the finale for the major tutti sections of the Minuet is markedly faster than that of the central section, where the soloists are briefly allowed a contribution. That movement I find a disappointing conclusion if only because the soloists have so little to do, but the essence of this performance is contained in the central Andantino grazioso, where the contrast with the Academy's performance is at its most extreme. Stern, Zukerman and Barenboim pay it the compliment of treating it as a slow movement. Their style is expressive, even romantic, and though the result makes a very long movement indeed—just over 13 minutes—their artistry sustains it, culminating in a wonderfully intense account of the cadenza, which brings in not only the oboe but a cello soloist too—the player here unfortunately unnamed. The cellist's incognito is particularly unfortunate, when the solo part is important in the finale too.
The Pleyel Sinfonio Concertante is one of two—the other being for two violins and orchestra—which the oboist, James Brown, recently unearthed in Paris. Playel betterknown for his work as concert promoter and founder of the Pleyel piano firm, was a pupil of Haydn, and particularly in his earlier years produced a quantity of easy-going works like this. It is in two extended movements— the first an ambitious Maestoso, the second a gently playful Rondo with an elegant 'travelling' main theme. Though the material is not specially memorable, it gives splendid opportunities to Stern and Zukerman—the latter confirming his status as a truly great exponent of the viola. Here too the dryness of acoustic is less obtrusive in music that never aims at anything more than entertaining.   ~E.G.