To devise an apt and original Mozart coupling is quite an achievement. Iona Brown and her Norwegian associates here bring together what in effect are Mozart’s two greatest double concertos. By happy chance they also occupy adjacent Kochel numbers, both dating from 1779, the piano work from January, the Sinfonia concertante from the summer or autumn.
Over the years since 1981, when she took over as Music Director, Iona Brown has built the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra into a superb body, in a way matching what Mariss Jansons has done in establishing the Oslo Philharmonic as one of the world’s great orchestras. Till now most of their recordings have been of Norwegian or twentieth-century music, but both these Mozart performances are equally impressive, readily rivalling the finest in the catalogue, fresh and stylish, helped by the warm and clear Chandos recording.
It is good to welcome two brilliant young Norwegian pianists in K365, light and agile, each articulating with refreshing clarity, relishing the antiphonal effects with subtle dynamic shading and with passagework beautifully pointed, individual but never self-indulgent. They are helped by the clean separation of the recording.
In the Sinfonia concertante the contrast between the soloists is far more extreme, when Iona Brown’s clear bright violin tone is set against the nut-brown warmth of Tomter’s viola, recently heard on disc in the excellent Naxos version of the Walton Viola Concerto (5/96). That contrast, brought out the more by the clean separation of the sound, may be more extreme than usual, but it goes again with a performance on modern instruments that is light and elegant. The great C minor slow movement, assumed to be an elegy for Mozart’s mother, is cooler than in some rival versions, but still tenderly expressive, never stiff. In the finale, which is on the fast side, the Norwegian players excel themselves in the precision of their ensemble, there and throughout the disc conveying the feeling of live performance.'