How lucky the burghers of Salzburg, in Mozart's day, who had such music as this to accompany their family celebrations! Mozart wrote a small group of divertimentos for strings and horns for the local aristocracy during his later years there, to augment his salary and prestige, and he did it with a mastery of technique that enabled him to find exactly the right blend of high spirits, warmth of expression and wit.
When they've been recorded, it's nearly always been with an orchestra rather than a solo group.
In Austria in Mozart's time, the word 'divertimento' signified solo performance, and there's a world of difference between what a sensitive solo fiddler and what a galumphing orchestra can do with that top line, in terms of technique, expressiveness and flexibility. And in these performances the bass part is played not by a cello, but, as was preferred in Salzburg, a double bass, which provides a different relationship to the upper voices, and the one that Mozart clearly intended.
The Gaudier Ensemble catch the mood of the music perfectly. The elegant sentiment of the slow movements (there are two in each work) is happily conveyed – listen to the sweetness of violinist Marieke Blankestijn's phrasing in the Adagio of K247 and her gentle, unassuming eloquence in that of K334. In the latter work the second violin is called on, too, for some degree of virtuosity, but it's to Blankestijn that most of the rapid and stratospheric music goes, and she copes in style. She also phrases the famous first minuet here gracefully. Mozart's second minuets (each divertimento has six movements) are usually more rumbustious, with the horns prominent, and these too are heartily done.
Altogether this is a delectable record.