This is not just an excellent new bargain version of the Mozart horn concertos, superbly played and recorded, but a most valuable example of Mozartian scholarship on disc. Michael Thompson, himself directing the Bournemouth Sinfonietta with point and flair, plays the four regular concertos in revised texts prepared by John Humphries, as well as offering reconstructions by Humphries of two movements, designed as the outer movements, an Allegro, K370b and a Rondo, K371, for an earlier horn concerto written soon after Mozart arrived in Vienna.
The other Rondo, K514, completed by Sussmayr, is the version generally used in modern performances of the second movement of the so-called Horn Concerto No. 1, K412. In his excellent note Humphries points out that according to the latest scholarship, K412 in D, far from being the first of the concertos written for Leutgeb, was the last, less demanding technically for the soloist, both in the key chosen and in the range required. Humphries argues that the revised chronology of the horn concertos – followed in the layout of the works on the disc – reflects change in Leutgeb’s technique, when time began to take its toll. Fascinatingly, the Rondo played here as the second movement finale of K412 is Humphries’s reconstruction from sources recently discovered, much more imaginative than the Sussmayr version.
It is a revelation too in the most popular of the concertos, No. 4, to have extra passages, again adding Mozartian inventiveness. For example, the tutti in the first movement before the development section is here extended in a charming few extra bars (track 7, 3'15''). The most frustrating, if equally illuminating item is the E major Fragment dating from 1785-6, which consists of a magnificent orchestral tutti, longer than usual, leading into only a few bars of horn solo.
Thompson, for ten years the Philharmonia’s first horn, is not only technically brilliant, but plays with delectable lightness and point, bringing out the wit in finales, as well as the tenderness in slow movements. His playing and approach are very distinct from what he himself has described as the supercharged American style of horn-playing. As conductor and director, he also draws sparkling and refined playing from the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, very well recorded in clear, atmospheric sound. An outstanding issue for both specialist and newcomer alike.'