Claudio Abbado Conducts Mozart (Sony Classical Masters)

Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic once again defy the inexorable progress of period performance in exhilarating accounts of Mozart using modern instruments, opined Gramophone. The new 5-CD reissue of these recordings from the early 1990s includes several favourite symphonies, the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, the Masonic Funeral Music, a serenade and divertimento as well as the C minor Mass, of which Abbado s performance is wide-ranging, delivering most satisfyingly on every aspect of this hugely varied score. He has an impressively unified team at his disposal, with a superb quartet of singers: in fact Bonney and Auger are as well matched as you could reasonably expect to find in the impossibly demanding Domine Deus duet (Music-Web International).