Mozart: Horn Concertos

The first recordings of Mozart's horn concertos using the kind of instrument the composer would have been familiar with appeared in the early 1970s. The inescapable contrast between the open and stopped notes on the valve-less horn (the open ones sounding round, the stopped ones thin, sometimes raspy) was a major talking point, not least because the playing style served to highlight the differences. Roger Montgomery's new live recording with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment manages to make the enforced unevenness sound as organic as anyone I've heard. His playing may not be immaculate, but it is very persuasive. The orchestral accompaniment under Margaret Faultless is rather more routine. url.ie/gb48