An obvious coupling, this trilogy of works inspired by Leon Goossens, but I don't recall it having been done before. All three, different though they are, responded to Goossens's very characteristic tone, which was penetrating, reedy, elegant and wonderfully flexible. Pamela Woods and her colleagues offer sympathetic and accomplished readings plus a bonus, the opportunity of hearing them with a distinctly non-Goossens oboe sound. Hers is ample, smooth and quite rich, almost clarinet-like. You hear immediately how well it accords with solo strings, especially with the rather full colour of the Audubon Quartet, who have a particularly warm-toned violist. Woods has all the agile virtuosity that the Bliss Quintet requires, but it is noticeable that she adds appreciably to the Nash Ensemble's timings (on Hyperion) of each movement. She certainly doesn't seem at all taxed by the work, but perhaps hers is a sound that in such rhapsodic music can only travel just so fast.
Like the Nash oboist (Gareth Hulse) Sarah Francis (on Chandos) produces an audibly Goossens-descended tone-quality in the Bax Quintet; there are no noticeable differences of tempo here, but the jig-like finale in Francis's reading has a touch more snap to it than Woods's. Both the Nash's Bliss (coupled with five other chamber pieces by him) and Francis's and her colleagues' Bax (the couplings here are quartets and quintets by Holst, Moeran and Jacob) are rather more slender, quieter performances than Woods's and with a slightly more precise turning of rhythms but I cannot say that I preferred them on that account. Woods and the Audubon have a warmth and a serene poise (the codas to the first two movements of the Bliss are particularly lovely) that I found very attractive.
The Britten makes an interesting comparison too, since Gregor Zubicky (with a group of Norwegian string players on Simax/Conifer) has a sound much closer to Woods's than that of Goossens, Francis or Hulse (Zubicky's mixed-bag of a coupling consists of Britten's Metamorphoses after Ovid, the Mozart Oboe Quartet and the Divertimento by the contemporary Norwegian composer Jan Carlstedt). He and his colleagues are better, I feel, at pointing up the strong contrasts between the sections of the Phantasy Quartet and hence the drama that the title conceals. But the lyrical melodies (the one betraying the influence of Vaughan Williams especially) are just a shade more lovingly phrased by the Americans. Not only an obvious coupling but a highly enjoyable one, and beautifully recorded.'