My reservations about aspects of the playing of the Oradea Philharmonic Orchestra (see above) apply equally here but the same keen spirit prevails and on the whole the music comes over well. The soloists are more variable. Violinist Gheorghe Ille's intonation has its precarious moments, and his intense, beefy tone in his concerto's Adagio doesn't strike me as quite appropriate. Violist Alexandru Iosif Thurzo's playing isn't ideally polished either, but he shows greater feeling for the spirit of the music, and Haydn seems to have found the unusual solo combination (viola and harpsichord) more inspiring—viola players hungry for new repertoire should give it a try.
Aurelian Octav Popa, soloist and conductor of the Quodlibet Musicum Chamber Orchestra in the Clarinet Concerto, secures the cleanest performance, but in the end it's the Viola and Harpsichord Concerto that I wanted to hear again, and it's principally for this that I'd recommend the disc—just the kind of piece that would go down well on BBC Radio 3's ''Morning Concert''. The sound may not be five-star, but it's quite acceptable and the original Electrecord recordings appear to have made the transition to CD fairly smoothly. One hopes that Olympia will be able to do a lot more exploring amongst the Romanian catalogues.'