Officina Musicale/Orazio TuccellaFuga Libera FUG 560 ****

Officina Musicale is an Italian ensemble whose members suffered in the 2009 earthquake that destroyed much of the city of L’Aquila. (The ensemble’s director, Orazio Tuccella, survived by jumping out of a second-storey window.) The group’s new Mozart disc will help raise funds to support the ensemble’s ongoing activity. Happily, their performances are worth acquiring for musical as well as humanitarian reasons. Officina Musicale’s handling of two Mozart divertimentos for horn and strings has an attractive balance of lightness and weight. The spirit is gentle and the string playing free and unforced, yet the whole also has an unexaggerated fullness of expression. See url.ie/6c88