The current passion for recording arrangements of Rossini's Sonate a quattro and the relative lack of interest in the string quartet originals is a source of some frustration to Rossinians, the more so as single record surveys of the works often follow the precedent of the arrangers of Rossini's own time by omitting one or more of the sonatas. (Here it is No. 3).
The present record does, none the less, have the merit of preserving a set of really rather characterful arrangements by the nineteenth-century German-born, French-domiciled clarinettist, Frederic Berr. His choice of sole wind instruments—flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon—is, generally speaking, an apt one which the youthful Rossini might well have found entirely agreeable. In adapting the sonatas, Berr also changed some of the keys and key relationships, but this is not a matter of immense moment.
The soloists of Munich's Residenz Quartet play the music with character and style, stressing its energy and droll humour, and the digital recording, though over-zealous in conveying the clatter of the bassoon's keys, is clear and immediate. I still cherish the original string versions on the deleted Philips recording led by Accardo (6769 024, 4/81: a natural for CD reissue, I would have thought) but it would be churlish to deny the present record's interest and capacity to give much innocent pleasure.'