Beethoven's Septet has always been popular––to his considerable irritation when it was compared favourably with later, greater works––but the C major Quintet has never had such a hold on the repertory. It is in some ways the more interesting work, and Hausmusik understand it very well and make out a strong case for it. Beethoven was exploring, and especially was trying his strength with harmonic shifts that later were to be absorbed to the centre of his idiom. The dramatic move to a key a third away was something he always liked, and here in C major he plays a clever long-range harmonic trick by approaching an unexpected key (A flat) from two different directions (C and F), and then confirming it near the end of the finale by leaping at it from an astonishingly unlikely direction.
Such things may seem technical tricks, scarcely for us to bother with. But they are part of the musical game Beethoven is playing so as to stimulate and entertain, and unless the performers understand what is afoot, the music will not come across. Hausmusik respond with a delicious sense of humour at these moments, and again when at the start of this finale Beethoven makes a couple of false starts as if teasing the listener into guessing where on earth he can be going next. The players listen closely to the textures (and so do the engineers)––to the second violin's spread pizzicato chords in the Adagio, to the low second viola thirds that give the Scherzo a particular colour, to the effect produced by the clashing time signatures in the finale. It is a performance of brilliant perception and technique.
So is that of the Septet. The tempos are classically judged, so that the Adagio does not (especially in Antony Pay's lead with the melody) suggest a more romantic manner, and the Minuet is neatly contrasted with the Scherzo. Antony Halstead copes brilliantly with the tricky horn interpolations in both, and if he does let rip a bit at the last minute, it is in keeping with the entertainment nature of the work. Monica Huggett leads her forces here as infectiously as in the Quintet. A most intelligent, engaging piece of music-making.'