These three symphonies, all very early, come as a necessary supplement to Christopher Hogwood's formidable set of the complete Mozart symphonies played on period instruments. The A minor, now nicknamed Odense, after the town where a set of parts was found, is the work which in 1983 caused a nine-day wonder, when it was identified as the piece, the incipit of which had been included in the first Breitkopf manuscript catalogue drawn up around 1799. Neal Zaslaw in his detailed, scholarly notes for the disc fairly enough queries the authenticity of the piece none the less, when ''without an authentic source it can be neither firmly attributed nor precisely dated. Indeed many things about K16a are stylistically unlike a work of Mozart's''. That will be evident enough to any Mozartian, not necessarily a scholar, but it is a fresh and lively work all the same, the more attractive in this authentic reading with its brisk speeds and crisp ensemble, preferable to the first recording which understandably the Odense Symphony Orchestra insisted on making (Unicorn-Kanchana DKP9039, 2/85).
K45a, included in the usual collections of Mozart symphonies, was omitted from the Hogwood series, because at the time of recording it was thought to be by Leopold Mozart largely on stylistic grounds, and also on the theory that it had been exchanged for the other Symphony in G found at the Lambach monastery. But before the records of Volume 7 were published, Zaslaw's own suspicion that that was not so was confirmed, and the present issue fulfils the promise then made of its inclusion on a separate record. This is the first recording of the original version of the score found in 1982 in the Munich Staatsbibliothek, incorporating many points of detail that were different from the usual Lambach score—as for example in the slow movement the absence of mutes on upper strings and arco instead of pizzicato for cellos and basses. The lively 3/8 finale is particularly impressive.
The third work has been pieced together from movements out of the seven-movement Serenade in D, K185, fairly enough, when a symphony version was already listed in the Breitkopf manuscript catalogue, and the other five Salzburg serenades also exist in symphony versions. The four movements selected here are the first, fourth (Andante grazioso), the third (the first of the two minuets) and the seventh with its grand slow introduction leading to a delectable jig. That jig in particular is much more winning at a more relaxed tempo than the same finale was in Willi Boskovsky's 1970 LP recording of K185, now available on the Decca Jubilee label (JB19, 10/77). As in the series as a whole, the Minuet has the repeats observed on the da capo, and anyone who has enjoyed the freshness and clarity of early Mozart in the main set can safety be recommended to this valuable supplement.'