This is only the second recording in the catalogue of the great Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola using period instruments. This fine performance is all the more welcome when it comes ideally coupled with the early Concertone (the first period performance on disc) as well as the C major Rondo.
   The Portland Baroque Orchestra, founded in 1984, are a period group based in Portland, Oregon, of which Monica Huggett has been the Artistic Director since 1995. The quality of the orchestra is immediately established in the opening tutti of the Sinfonia concertante. Ripe, brazen horns bray out in the second subject, with a thrilling crescendo following that, involving a wider range of dynamic than is common in period performance on disc.
   Both soloists are well known from their work on this side of the Atlantic, and here they find a period purity that consistently avoids the astringent tone which could easily undermine the beauty of this masterpiece. Their duetting is free rather than strictly controlled, with each responding to the other. Both in the solo work and in the orchestral accompaniment the ensemble is not as crisp as in the earlier period performance on Cala from Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band, in which Stephanie and Roger Chase are the soloists. On balance I still prefer that earlier version, which manages to be at once crisper and more warmly expressive within a period frame.
   In the slow movements above all, not just of the Sinfonia concertante but of the Concertone too, the new performances are a degree too severe to convey the full beauty of the writing. The recording too, set in a warmly sympathetic acoustic, is not quite so well defined as that for Cala. The outer movements of the Concertone, less complex than the Sinfonia Concertante, work extremely well, fresh and alert, and so does the Rondo in C. In the Concertone the oboist, Gonzalo Ruiz, and the cellist Sarah Freiburg, richly deserve their special credit in the booklet. A welcome issue, particularly when direct rivalry is limited.

--Gramophone Magazine, November 1998

   One of the highlights of PBO's 1997-98 season was a visit by Pavlo Beznosiuk, who  joined music director Monica Huggett for a performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, the great double concerto for violin and viola.  After the concert appearances the musicians retired to Marylhurst for a recording session, the result of which is a just released disc on the Virgin label. Though you can't see the ensemble’s verve in this format, it remains abundantly clear. The dynamics are dramatic, the tempi often breathtaking and the transitions from spirited and muscular to sensitive and sweet are impeccable.  Huggett and Beznosiuk’s dialogue throughout is engaging and energetic, both in the Sinfonia and the Concertone for Two Violins and Orchestra. The recording also includes the K. 373 Rondo for Violin and Orchestra. Highly recommended.

--James McQuillen, Willamette Week, October 14, 1998