Mozart: Dances, Marches

Unlikely To Be Bettered. By John Austin VINE VOICE, October 7, 2000 It's hard to imagine this set ever being replaced. The Vienna Mozart Ensemble, comprised about two dozen members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Willi Boskovsky, himself a former concertmaster of the orchestra, had long established himself as the unchallenged leader in performances of the great dance music associated with Vienna when these recordings were made in the 1960s. Mozart himself loved to dance, participating in organised dancing at his home that sometimes lasted all through the night, and sometimes dancing just with his wife Constanze to keep warm when there was not enough wood for the fire. Minuets, marches, German dances, contredanses - they are all here. Can you listen to 40 minuets in a row? Such is the variety of mood and colour that Mozart contrived, and such are the subtleties and nuances in these performances, that boredom never occurs.