Customer Reviews

Mozart: Oboe Quartet K370; Horn Quintet K407; String Quartet 'The Hunt' K458 /Daniel * Bell * The Lindsays

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mixed chamber music programs are altogether rarer than those which include a series of pieces in the same genre. Thus it is more common to encounter an entire CD devoted to Mozart's string quartets or to his chamber works featuring winds. The Lindsay's, however, offer us one of Mozart's best-known quartets coupled with the gorgeous Oboe Quartet and still-underappreciated Horn Quintet.

All three works receive first-rate performances, though their approach to K. 458 focuses entirely on that work's playful, even frivolous, qualities, while tending to ignore other, more serious currents that course beneath the surface of this extrovert score. An entertaining and finely honed rendition that doesn't fully realize the quartet's full stature. I have no quibbles whatsoever concerning the two works featuring wind instruments. The oboist in K. 370 plays with a deliciously fruity tone without a hint of that pinched, nasal quality one sometimes encounters in recordings of this piece with Austrian or German ensembles. The French horn player in K. 407 tosses off his passagework with accuracy and élan, nor does he miss the robust, afresco qualities associated with Mozart's music for this instrument. In both works the Lindsays engage in vigorous but eminently civilized dialogue with their two wind-playing guests. I can't recall hearing better renditions of either work, with the possible exception of an ancient Concert-Disc LP of K. 370 and K. 407 featuring Ray Still and Samuel Baron with the Fine Arts Quartet--though my memory of that long-vanished recording may be clouded with a wee bit of nostalgia.

ASV provides eminently natural, well-balanced sonics, wanting perhaps in a certain vividness found in other recordings of this repertoire (cf. the superb St. Martin's Academy rendition of the Oboe Quartet and Horn Quintet, coupled logically with the Clarinet Quintet on a mid-priced Phillips CD, or the Amadeus Quartet's recording of K. 458 on DG). So, in the end, there are sufficient qualifications to withhold one star from this production. Perhaps one can do better at lower price ranges. Still, the Lindsay's versions of the two works featuring wind soloists are top-notch, and so in the end I will give this disc a warm recommendation.