“Each disc brings together a middle-period symphony and a contemporaneous Serenade. The sound recording has a sharpness of focus and sense of presence more often associated with the finest analogue recordings of the 1960s and 1970s. It's surprising to find that the venue was Henry Wood Hall, for this sounds rather more intimate than most recordings made there, with plenty of bloom but no excessive reverberation. This is Mozart sound, using modern instruments but with some concern for the crisper manners encouraged by period performance, that in its freshness and beauty makes one want to go on listening.
The finale of the Symphony No 33, for example, brings a hectic speed which doesn't sound at all breathless, with featherlight triplets, and similarly in the finale of the Posthorn Serenade with which it's coupled. Exceptionally, in that Serenade, Iona Brown opts for a more relaxed speed and more moulded style in the lovely minor-key Andantino of the fifth movement. The posthorn in the Trio of the second Minuet is this time much more brazen and more forwardly balanced than before.
The coupling of the Haffner Symphony and Haffner Serenade is specially apt. Iona Brown herself is the virtuoso soloist in the Serenade, lighter than ever in the moto perpetuo scurryings of the fourth-movement Rondo. For those who continue to resist period performances in this repertory these are very refreshing discs.” --The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010
The coupling of the Haffner Symphony and Haffner Serenade is specially apt. Iona Brown herself is the virtuoso soloist in the Serenade, lighter than ever in the moto perpetuo scurryings of the fourth-movement Rondo. For those who continue to resist period performances in this repertory these are very refreshing discs.” --The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010
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