I have to say at once that the new and well-recorded Novalis disc suffers from a handicap throughout in the shape of Leopold Hager's very dull, four-square conducting. This is a great pity, since Thomas Indermuhle is an excellent player, with an attractive tone quality which might be described as being midway between the English and Continental styles. He plays his own, very effective cadenzas, and throughout the disc shows an unerring sense of style and sensitive artistry. The C major Concerto suits the oboe very nicely in Holliger's transcription, and in the Sinfonia Concertante all the soloists are first-rate. But K297b, with its particularly tiresome and repetitive finale, is not one of Mozart's best efforts, and needs a much more imaginative orchestral contribution than it receives. The ECO do their best, but seem quite dispirited by Hager's leaden beat.
On their ASV disc Douglas Boyd and Paavo Berglund clearly have a good rapport, and the orchestral accompaniment in K314 is very alert, attentive and beautifully shaped. What a difference that makes! Their excellently engineered disc also contains a most attractive account of Strauss's Oboe Concerto. Randall Wolfgang is also a very fine player in the American tradition. Inevitably the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra play with less personality than the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Berglund, but they support their colleague sympathetically, and this version, on a pleasant-sounding DG disc which also contains Mozart's Horn Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, plus the Bassoon Concerto, can also be highly recommended. The soloists in Decca's beautifully recorded version of the Sinfonia Concertante are the equal of those on Novalis and the ECO play with a good deal more vitality and finesse under Barry Tuckwell than they do under Hager.'