In 1956, Deutsche Grammophon celebrated the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth by issuing a six-LP edition of newly recorded performances of his music. It contained orchestral, chamber and vocal music.

Eloquence has now reissued the original set and expanded it with the addition of several other Mozart recordings from the same period.

Some of these first appeared on DG’s Archiv label, which implies they appeared at the very outset of the reappraisal of authentic period performance style (primarily Baroque but also from the Classical period). Nevertheless, it would be fair to say this set bears little resemblance to Mozart playing of today. Orchestral strings are not reduced in number, piano performances tend to be on the delicate side with little attack, and vocalists sing with solid vibrato and not the kind of detailing we get from contemporary singers. (To be honest, some of the singing is pretty indifferent.)

As the conductor and pianist Bernhard Paumgartner puts it, quoted in the booklet note, “Each era in the course of cultural history, led by the absolute conviction of doing the right thing, differs in principle and often extensively in practice from other periods, in the performance of these seemingly ‘immovable’ Classical works.”