Tchaikovsky asked for ''as many strings as possible'' for the performance of his string Serenade, one of his out-and-out masterpieces. He wrote it in the autumn of 1880, during a rare period of relaxed happiness at his sister's country house in the Ukraine when he was at the peak of his powers. Its spontaneity of invention and perfection of form make it worthy of his beloved Mozart. The work is now quite often heard played by a chamber orchestra, when it usually sounds more athletic, less sumptuous, and that comment certainly applies to the Moscow performance where the impression is very much of a small group playing together with complete unanimity and great brilliance. There is much subtlety of light and shade and, with a particularly brisk tempo for the first movement, a feeling of incandescent energy, yet with very precise articulation and refined ensemble preventing any sense of hurry. Indeed, the busy, rhythmic, Mozartian second subject is presented with enormous finesse and the lightest possible touch.
The bravura of the string playing throughout cannot fail to exhilarate, although there is perhaps an absence of charm. This also applies to the Grieg couplings, with bracing allegros in the Holberg Suite, as fresh as you like in its open-air feeling but with the slow movements gentle in feeling and texture though a little cool. The two Norwegian Melodies are full of rhythmic character and it is the second, the ''Cow-keeper Tune and Country Dance'' that ends the programme in rollicking exuberance. The recording, made in the agreeable ambience of Berwald Hall, Stockholm, is brightly lit, with a very wide dynamic range.
The alternative Scottish chamber group account of the Tchaikovsky Serenade is altogether mellower. Serebrier's spacious opening means that Tchaikovsky's striding theme unfolds with noticeable breadth and a strong feeling for the movement of the inner parts of the rich harmony. Nevertheless, this performance overall is easy to warm to and it is followed by a perfectly lovely account of Tchaikovsky's gentle Elegy written in 1884. After the Elegy comes the Mozartiana Suite, a curious, hybrid work which sits somewhat uneasily between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The slow movement is based on Mozart's Ave verum, K618, although Tchaikovsky's source is Liszt's concert paraphrase. It is played here very winningly—as is the suite as a whole—especially the finale, a fairly straight transcription of Mozart's own variations for piano on a theme by Gluck (K455). The programme ends with the Andante cantabile in Serebrier's own arrangement. However, before that come two fascinating Stravinsky orchestrations (from Tchaikovsky's piano score) made for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, when The Sleeping Beauty was staged in London in 1921. As a whole this disc comprises an agreeable and generous Tchaikovskian anthology, with a programme that is well planned for continuous listening.'