Reviewing the version of
the Schubert on this CD brings a welcome encounter with an old
friend. I owned the original Saga LP of this recording and treasured
the performance even though it meant listening through the heavy
surface noise of the Saga LPs of the 1960s. Later, much better
German pressings improved the matter. Now, with the Mozart coupling,
I welcome its return.
The Penguin Guide review,
reprinted in part on the back cover, referred to the direct,
concentrated but unmannered nature of the performance and these
qualities are evident from the start. The opening allegro
sets the tone: direct and brisk but not inexpressive. The playing
of the Aeolians, who became something of a Saga house-ensemble
before Decca contracted them to record their very fine set of
the Haydn quartets, combines beauty with expressiveness.
The beauty of the playing
is, of course, most evident in the adagio, a really heart-felt
but not over-emotional performance of this wonderful movement.
The booklet reminds us that the last music which Schubert heard,
a mere few months after composing the Quintet, was Beethoven’s
Op.131 quartet. At the risk of seeming fanciful, it seems to
me that this adagio, like the late piano sonatas, was
Schubert’s response to that quartet, written by a man who already
knew that he was dying. Though the tone of Schubert’s letters
during that last summer of 1828 is generally cheerful, the finale
of the Quintet mirrors this cheerfulness. The Aeolians’ time
for the adagio, at 15:31, is objectively on the slow
side but subjectively their tempo seems just right for a work
which combines emotional appeal with the warmth that the second
cello brings. Schubert presumably chose the Boccherini model
with the second cello rather than the second viola of the Mozart
string quintets in order to add this warmth. The same is true
of the tempi of the other movements. Apart from the opening
allegro, their timings are a little slow but they never
seem so.
The recording inevitably
shows its age in slight harshness in the outer movements – a
degree of wiriness in the violins especially at forte
and beyond – but I did not find this really troublesome and
it certainly does not preclude a strong recommendation. The
chief competitor in this price range is the very decent but
unexceptional version on Naxos 8.550338. The Naxos DDD recording
is inevitably more natural-sounding than the ADD Regis but the
Aeolians have such a real edge over the Ensemble Villa Musica
as to make this Regis CD preferable. Comparison of the two versions
of the second movement shows that Villa Musica, though slightly
faster, seem at times to drag.
Both CDs place the Quintet
first, Naxos concluding with Schubert’s String Trio, D581, and
Regis with the first of Mozart’s so-called Salzburg Symphonies.
The Mozart String Divertimento is the better-known work, though
collectors may well have a CD which couples all three String
Divertimenti, Kk136-8. I cannot imagine that serious listeners
would want to hear either work after the Quintet; it is, of
course, possible to programme the playing-order but it would
surely have been more sensible for the companies to have reversed
the order themselves. The Aeolians play the Mozart well but
it inevitably sounds trivial after the intensity of the Schubert,
even with a 13-second gap between the works, and the ear misses
the warmth of the second cello as it switches to the sound of
the Aeolians alone. There is no better way to confound the arguments
of those who believe the finale of the Quintet to be
too light-weight than to follow it with the opening of K136.
Otherwise the Aeolians capture the spirit of this Mozart Divertimento
well. The recording of the Mozart is a trifle thin though perfectly
acceptable.
The disc is attractively
presented, with a Romantic Austrian landscape on the cover and
a perfectly adequate set of notes; not quite in the same league
as Keith Anderson’s for Saga, but informative.
Brian
Wilson
Aeolian String Quartet: Sidney Humphreys (violin); Raymond Keenlyside
(violin); Margaret Major (viola); Derek Simpson (cello); Bruno Schreker
(2nd cello, Schubert)
