Anyone who still nurtures suspicions that period-instrument performances are expressionless or 'objective' should lend an ear to this very appealing disc, which offers some remarkable and highly individual readings of familiar works. The major item here is of course the Clarinet Quintet, but perhaps the most arresting of the performances is that of the Oboe Quartet. I have always thought of this as a relatively minor work, but Stephen Hammer clearly doesn't take that view and has persuaded me to think afresh. His reading, sensitively supported by the string group led by Monica Huggett, is an extremely sophisticated one with every phrase newly considered in terms of its potential meaning, often with original results. Listen for example to his dramatic handling of the D minor music in the first movement development, or to his delicate timing of the recapitulation. There is a problem, however, attendant on such intensely characterized playing when—as period-instrument players normally do you observe all repeats. Effects as striking as these do not readily bear repetition and the performance might have gained as a whole had the players not made their repeats carbon copies but had, emotionally speaking, kept something in hand. The quick tempos common in periodinstrument performances have no place here: the first movement is decidedly deliberate, the Adagio very slow, and improvisatory in feeling, the finale restrained enough to allow Hammer room for much beguiling and suggestive detail. His tone is full and rich, closer to modern oboe tone than that of most English period oboists (he is the leading one in America). I am not always convinced that this performance is wholly faithful to period style, but it is certainly full of fine musicianship.
The Horn Quintet has a warm and leisurely reading, with many interesting details as well as very sure technique from Michael Thompson and a few new thoughts too from Monica Huggett. The rich, full textures are happily handled. Using a hand-horn, Thompson, of course, produces a slightly 'coloured' tone on all the chromatic notes as they are obtained by putting the hand in the bell—an effect that always accords happily with the musical sense.
For the Clarinet Quintet, again we have a player in Antony Pay who aspires towards a modern clarinet tone and a wide expressive palette. Again, tempos are on the slow side of average, and there is plenty of time for careful moulding of the lines. Pay phrases very sensitively and warmly—listen for example to the minor-key version in the clarinet of the first movement's second subject, with the gentle, rather dense sound of the vibrato-less (or nearly so) strings supporting the clarinet line. The Larghetto, taken slowly, is full of fine detail and the lightness of the string playing avoids the usual density of texture that is part and parcel of any modern performance, with all the string players vibratoing intensively. Monica Huggett in particular produces a soft, evanescent sound, lightly sustained, which permits the interesting inner string parts to be well heard in the first trio of the minuet. Pay offers a little, ornamentation in the second trio, but of a stereotyped kind (often simply a lower appoggiatura) and he doesn't follow it through: better not to attempt it than do it in this slightly tentative way which shows no real grasp of the style—indeed, when he goes further the ornamentation has the ring of poor quality music of the early nineteenth century. The same applies in the finale, in the first variation and the adagio one, where again a false note is struck (literally as well as metaphorically). It is anyway arguable whether it is appropriate to embellish music of this kind and this date simply because some performers of the time did so: and that is even more true in a recorded performance than a concert one. Still, the finale is in many ways very finely done, the textures once again crystal clear (and the aural glimpses through them are a constant delight) and the playing generally very spirited. I should mention that Pay's use of a basset clarinet (that is, one that goes four semitones lower than the normal instrument corresponding with the one used by Anton Stadler, for whom the work was written) often enables him to round out a phrase in a much more natural way than we hear in the familiar 'normalized' version: listen to the arpeggios in the first movement development, or the clarinet's last phrase in the first strain of the second trio, or the semiquaver variation here all particularly striking examples and no doubt restoring what Mozart wanted.
I wrote quite warmly last month of the Novalis/ASV recording of these three works, cited above. Those performances, on modern instruments, are capable and often felicitous, but the present ones, certainly those of the oboe and clarinet works, are much more carefully and imaginatively thought out. I happily recommend these new ones, and not only to period-instrument aficionados. The recording is true and clear and there is an excellent note by Alec Hyatt King.R1 '8812057'