Mozart Chamber Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 3/1993
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMC40 1384

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Quintet for Clarinet and Strings |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Walter) Boeykens Ensemble Walter Boeykens, Clarinet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Keyboard Trio No. 2, 'Kegelstatt' |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Walter) Boeykens Ensemble Walter Boeykens, Clarinet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Composer or Director: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 3/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 53
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMC90 1384

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Quintet for Clarinet and Strings |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Walter) Boeykens Ensemble Walter Boeykens, Clarinet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Keyboard Trio No. 2, 'Kegelstatt' |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
(Walter) Boeykens Ensemble Walter Boeykens, Clarinet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Author: Christopher Headington
Walter Boeykens is an excellent clarinettist who possesses a warm yet delicate tone and the ability to shape a phrase elegantly as well as encompass busy passagework. His chosen colleagues do not share his effortless fluency, as we can hear in some of the semiquaver passagework in the first movement of the Quintet, but they are good players none the less and this is an affectionate, enjoyable performance. However, for my own taste the slow movement is too romanticized with its occasional tonal swells and string portamentos, it is also taken slower than by some ensembles, although the marking Larghetto may justify this. The Minuet, too, comes from the same stable in being warm rather than dance-like. The recording calls our attention to the richness of Mozart's textures but not everyone will complain about that.
The ''Skittle Alley'' Trio got its name because Mozart is supposed to have had his first musical ideas for it while bowling at a friend's house. Here, the viola joins the clarinet in bringing warmth to the music overall, but there's plenty of variety in these three movements. The three artists play the work fluently and quite sensitively; however, they could find more subtlety and charm for the melody playing and the performance does not go far enough beyond sound musicianship to have distinction. Furthermore, I am not sure that it is only the fault of the recording that the dynamic range lacks extremes and that much of the sound is in the mezzo forte to forte range. In all, this is a pleasing disc but at full-price hardly an indispensable one.'
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