For Joseph II, as for all the exalted dignitaries of the Austrian Empire, music for wind-band was never more than an agreeable way of hearing the most beautiful arias sung at the Vienna Opera in other places and on different occasions. Mozart, however, endowed the genre with the spirit of the Aufklarung. He transformed it from a mere outdoor divertissement into a vital part of the repertoire. Mozart's Gran Partita represents nothing less than the apotheosis of the genre. This performance by Philippe Herreweghe highlights all the work's subtle beauty and compositional inventiveness.