More Mozart - Greatest Hits

One CD could never hold all of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most popular pieces, so Sony was wise to follow its 1994 greatest-hits compilation with this sequel. Like its predecessor, More Mozart contains a fairly balanced mix of operatic excerpts and movements from concertos, symphonies, serenades, and keyboard music to introduce newcomers to the composer's highly varied output and to the label's large backlist of Mozart recordings. This collection works well for beginners, since the performances are almost entirely first rate and the selections intelligently chosen; the only exception is the Canadian Brass' arrangement of the "Alleluia" from the vocal motet Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, a bumptious version that seems best suited to an Austrian bandstand and that hardly does justice to Mozart's original intentions. Still, considering that this is only one failure out of 13 tracks and that the other performances more than make up for it in elegance and polish, this vulgar rendition is easy to overlook and the collection as a whole is quite acceptable. The recordings are undated on the package or in the spare liner notes, though from the clear digital sound one can reasonably assume that they date from the mid-'80s up to the year of release.