This is the first recording on Channel Classics with the Italian based MIB Ensemble. Comprising the best players from the top orchestras of Italy, the ensemble felt the need to create their own ensemble to fill the gap in repertoire and concert possibilities for wind instruments. The two major early composers having written for winds would indeed be Mozart and Beethoven so there is no better fitting pieces than the two octets combined with the Rondino of Beethoven. Though considered 'Tafelmusik' - music for special occasions, street music, the Mozart Serenade first movement is anything but street music - no friendly and polite little piece of entertainment, but a serious, sometimes threatening eight-part wind music full of chromaticism, dramatic leaps and definitely unfestive dissonances. Beethoven's Octet also has the classical 4 movement structure but wrote the piece as an official concert piece.