Printable Version: - Mozart Horn Conc Jeurissen BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94644 [RB] Musicweb International Classical Reviews

This generously filled CD was first issued on Olympia OCD 470 but has been picked up several times under licensing arrangements made with Brilliant Classics. It now makes a very welcome return to the catalogue and will bear repeat reissues in the future.

Jeurissen, Goodman and the orchestra, complete with nicely rendered harpsichord, are perfectly in style: a genial blend of enchantment, panache and poetry. Jeurissen is very much at the centre and most points of the compass here yet with no suggestion of stifling Mozart. In the first movement of No. 2 the soloist’s legato legerdemain is a complete joy to hear: try 5:12. This is not for the last or only time.

We hear the four numbered horn concertos plus a concerto movement completed by Jeurissen and a two-movement E Flat concerto also realised by the soloist in the form of a nicely rounded Allegro and a Rondeau allegro likewise. The First Concerto is again in Jeurissen's instrumentation. We end with something of a shock with a reprise of the Rondo Allegro of No. 1 with Mozart’s original text sung/spoken over the top in a lively Figaro-style performance by Giorgio Mereu. Jeurissen wrote the notes - all five pages of them.

This is the fullest account of Mozart’s music for horn and orchestra. Even so Jeurissen modestly emphasises that such work can never bear comparison with genuine Mozart. Even so it is good to add to the store of Mozartean music. One wonders how often we have heard the work of editors and completers rather than the composer's original and have hailed it as the genuine article - we think we know and a world of academics encourage or discourage us accordingly. As it is Jeurissen sounds convincing and totally in fidelity. If you are a Doubting Thomas let those doubts be evaporated by the last and overwhelmingly ebullient pages of the Rondo of No. 2 (tr. 3).

Rob Barnett

Perfectly in style: a genial and generous blend of enchantment, panache and poetry.

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