There’s some
overlap between Naxos and Capriccio when it comes to the attractive Op.166 Suite. This is
a largely nostalgic and very romantic piece and the two teams
take an almost identical view when it comes to tempi and timings.
But the Capriccio pairing of Ernö Sebestyen and organist Andreas
Juffinger is rather heavier and more Schumann-Brahmsian in inclination
whilst the Naxos duo are generally lighter, wristier and tend
to project the Suite’s more Mendelssohnian charms. There are advantages
in both approaches; the Naxos’s organ registrations are more delicate and Line Most tends to inflect
the violin line with more light and shade than does Sebestyen.
I think it’s fair to say that the Naxos duo cleaves to the more feminine sound and Capriccio’s to the more
masculine and heavily vibrated and richly pointed. At the same
tempo, however, it does show how two relatively divergent approaches
can be shown to work hand in glove with the music and not sound
imposed on it.
The
Six Pieces for Violin and Organ are studies in up to date nostalgia,
in that they fuse elements of baroque procedure and melody with
more romantic characteristics. That said, listening blind, you’d swear that Tartini and Handel were
mischievously at work in the Overture, complete with some fluttering
passages for organ and the gently indulged fugal section.
The Pastorale is delightfully light and sprung with the organ
tending to simply a supportive spongy base. The ethos is broadly
Handel meets Schumann and the latter predominates in the Abendlied
albeit with a touch of Schubert. This is all undemanding and
attractive, and recorded sympathetically: the Most-Ziener duo
plays with finesse and elegance – and not too much sauce.
Jonathan Woolf
Line 
