From the start, the size and nature of the scoring of Mozart’s Serenade for 12 Winds and Contrabass K. 361 (conventionally called either Serenade for 13 Winds or Gran Partita) and the unusual length of the work precluded frequent performance, and the piece (or selections from it) appeared in many alternative but more convenient scorings: for wind octet, wind sextet, string quintet and a flute quartet version of the variations (listed as K. 285b but almost certainly not Mozart’s work).

Of the ...