Sir Neville Marriner / Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields MOZART Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - PACHELBEL Canon - L. MOZART "Toy" Symphony

Sir Neville Marriner here collects a miscellaneous group of popular classical and Baroque pieces in characteristically polished and elegant performances. The only roughness – and that deliberate – is in the extra toy percussion of Leo­pold Mozart’s Cassation, with its long- misattributed Toy Symphony. The anonymous extra soloists enjoy themselves as amateurs might, not least on a wind machine, but what’s very hard to take is the grotesquely mismatched cuckoo-whistle, an instrument which should readily be tunable. 

Eine kleine Nachtmusik brings a performance plainly designed to caress the ear of traditional listeners wearied with period performance. The second-movement Romanze is even more honeyed than usual on muted strings. The oddity of the Pachelbel item is that the celebrated Canon – taken unsentimentally if sweetly at a flowing speed – is given a reprise after the Gigue. The recording is warm and well balanced. (Gramophone)