Tobias Feldmann: Mozart’s Journey to Paris

The Strad Issue: July 2025

Description: A period-instrument authority makes a strong case for Mozart

Musicians: Tobias Feldmann (violin) WDR Sinfonieorchester/Reinhard Goebel

Works: Mozart: Second Paris Symphony K311a (fragment); Violin Concerto no.7 K271a; Sinfonia concertante K521

Catalogue number: HÄNSSLER HC24065

Ever thought-provoking, Reinhard Goebel tests the ground with a programme of much-debated Mozart attributions in an album titled Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Journey to Paris. His introductory essay makes a convincing case for the authenticity of K271a, even though the concerto remained unpublished until 1907 and its sources include added performance annotations that smack of 19th-century technique and style.

The work proves an excellent showcase for the versatile Tobias Feldmann and the sweet, crystal-clear tone of his 1769 Nicolò Gagliano violin. Feldmann’s remarkable dexterity, particularly in the instrument’s higher registers, ensures his nimble, spirited and accurate negotiation of the fast outer movements and his natural response to line and phrase is most winning, especially in the central Andante. His cadenzas, though pertinent and brilliantly executed, are anachronistic and outsized for their period.

Goebel is less positive about the genuineness of K311a, admirably dispatched by the WDR Sinfonieorchester; but no such doubts surround Ritter von Seyfried’s orchestral arrangement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata for four hands K521, which, premiered in 1823 but as yet unpublished, brings the work new life. Solo instrumentalists (sadly uncredited here) emerge from the orchestral texture and adopt an intimate chamber-music approach overflowing with expressive melodic interaction. Enwrapped in first-rate recorded sound, these accomplished, perceptive accounts form an attractive, if musically undernourished, package of Classical-style fare.

ROBIN STOWELL