The crisp, triple-time opening movement of the early Divertimento, K254, augurs well: alert yet never inflexible rhythms, an easy give-and-take between violin and piano and an eager response to the music’s mingled grace and exuberance. The young Canadian group is just as enjoyable in the five mature trios. Faster movements are often rather broader than either the Beaux Arts (Philips, 8/95) or the Vienna Piano Trio (Nimbus, A/99). The finales of K502 and 542 (the opening theme truly dolce, as Mozart asks), benefit particularly from the Gryphon’s warm, unhurried playing, their delicacy of timing and their sensitivity to harmonic flux. Elsewhere – say in the opening Allegro of K502 – they can miss the puckishness and volatility caught by the Americans and, especially, the Viennese, with their bolder dynamic contrasts and more sharply contoured phrasing. But there are compensations in the elegance and finish of the Gryphon’s phrasing, the gleaming pianism of Jamie Parker (passagework is always sparkling and clearly directed) and the sweet-toned, delicately nuanced violin of Annalee Patipatanakoon. The cello is a bit recessed in the balance but Roman Borys contributes eloquently to the trio dialogue textures and takes his intermittent solo opportunities with attractively husky tone.

Like the Beaux Arts, the Gryphon are leisurely in the slow movements of K496, K502 and K548, though in the Larghetto of K502, especially, they vindicate their spacious tempo with playing of rapt concentration. In the Andante grazioso of K542 both rival groups suggest more of the gavotte’s lilt, though the Gryphon convey the veiled melancholy of the Schubertian A minor episode as poetically as anyone. The Vienna Piano Trio would still be my first choice in K502, 542 and 548 for the ebullience and spontaneous delight of their playing. But if you want the complete Mozart trios, this new set matches the classic Beaux Arts in polish and sensitivity, and surpasses it in beauty of violin tone and, inevitably, in quality of recording.