Customer Reviews

Great Chamber Music

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I was hesitant to buy this set as I thought that despite the name "Great Chamber Music", one could easily get burned with a lame collection of so-so chamber music.

Thankfully, that was not the case -- the set really does live up to the name. And it contains some delightful works -- like the Mozart flute quartets with Jean-Pierre Rampal -- that I might well never have heard otherwise.

The list of performers is very impressive. Besides Rampal, there are also Nathan Milstein, Pierre Fournier and Jean Fonda, Arthur Grumiaux and Klara Haskil, the Julliard String Quartet, Wiener Oktett, and the Smetana Quartet, among others.

The recordings were almost all recorded in 1953-1982 by Swiss Radio and Television. Only CD 10, a nice disc with Brahms' string sextets, is not Swiss-sourced. The older recordings are quite listenable, although mono. However, note that I am not an audiophile, and am fairly tolerant of less than vibrant sound as long as there is no distracting hiss or noise.

Only on CD 3 was the sound a problem for me. With Grumiaux and Haskil performing Beethoven and Mozart sonatas, I was looking forward to this being one of the best discs in the lot. Unfortunately it is probably the worst -- the microphones do not seem at all close to the musicians, and they pick up the sound of the entire concert hall rather than just the instruments. The sound is echoing and indistinct, and there are coughs and other crowd noise. The playing is generally very good -- although I could swear I heard a clunker or two from Grumiaux as well.

But other than disc 3, this is really a great set, especially for the bargain basement price.

CD descriptions are as follows:

CD 1 - Nathan Milstein (violin) and Arthur Balsam (piano), 1957.
Mozart - excerpts: an Adagio and Rondo
Bach - Partitia 2 excerpt, Sonata 3 excerpt
Beethoven - Violin Sonata 5 "Spring"
Paganini - Two cappricios for solo violin
Stravinsky - Chanson Russe
Ries - Perpetuum Mobile
von Paradis - Sicilienne

CD 2 - Pierre Fournier (cello) Jean Fonda (piano), 1964
Beethoven
- Cello Sonatas 2 and 3
- 12 Variations on "See the Conquering Hero Comes" (Haydn) and "Ein Madchen oder Weibchen" (Mozart)

CD 3 - Arthur Grumiaux (violin) and Klara Haskil (piano), 1960
Beethoven - Violin Sonatas 4 and 10
Mozart - Violin Sonata KV 378

CD 4 - Quartetto Italiano, 1968
Mozart - String Quartet 15
Dvorak - String Quartet 12
Ravel - String Quartet

CD 5 - Julliard String Quartet, 1970
Beethoven - String Quartet 16, op 135
Berg - Lyric Suite

CD 6 - Wiener Oktett, 1953 / Franco Gulli (violin) and Enrica Cavallo (piano), 1956
Schubert - Octet D 803
Schubert - Grand Duo for violin and piano D 574

CD 7 - Smetana Quartet, 1979 and 1982
Haydn - String Quartet 39 Hob III: 39
Schubert - String Quartet 10, String Quartet 14 "Death and the Maiden"

CD 8 - Jean-Pierre Rampal (flute) and Trio Pasquier, 1982
Mozart
Flute Quartet KV 285b
Flute Quartet KV 298
Prelude and Fuge for string trio KV 404a
Flute Quartet KV 285a
Flute Quartet KV 285
Quartet in F major KV 370 - Rondo
Quartet in G major - Adagio

CD 9 - Henryk Szeryng (violin) and Eugenio Bagnoli (piano), 1975
Beethoven - Violin Sonata op 12 no 1
Brahms - Violin Sonata 1
Bach - Partitia 2

CD 10 - a nice Italian string sextet, but I won't type in each performer's name, 1992
Brahms - Sextet for Strings, Nos 1 and 2


The set is put out by Membran Music of Germany, which is a hit-and-miss label that I know mainly from these 10-CD box sets (often collections of great conductors' works now in the public domain) and from its "Artone" series of 4-CD sets.

So far, I have had many more hits than misses with Membran Music titles. The experiences have not all been positive, but in general it seems that for the price (most sets are $16, some a little more or less) they put out collections with surprisingly good quality and often real historical interest.

Sometimes you take the chance and order some cheap multi-CD box with little known recordings. Some famous names attracted me to this item, which turned out a great positive surprise. Just a few tracks are old mono recordings, but even they sound great. These are apparently Swiss radio recordings. Very good and attractive set virtually for free, and you have probably never heard any of the interpretations before.