An excellent coupling. For a start the one moderately popular work here, Il tramonto, receives a pretty well ideal performance in its chamber version. And Anne Sofie von Otter is as responsible for its presentation as chamber music as her colleagues are. She sings intimately, yet with both drama and pathos, and never makes an ugly sound. In the quartet version the piece has a sort of pre-Raphaelite quality that is most appealing.
Respighi’s quartets are not often played, though he wrote several and obviously loved and understood the form: he was a member of a professional string quartet for several years. That group gave the first performance of the fairly early D major Quartet, which is warmly romantic, expertly written for the medium and often scrumptiously rich harmonically. I like especially the so-called ‘Intermezzo’, in fact a gentle Scherzo that begins with charming hesitancy and has a rather yearning trio section. The themes of the other movements are very agreeable, but not yet very individual. The only movement that sounds particularly Italian is the finale, which is a forceful tarantella.
The Quartetto dorico is much stronger and more personal, one of the more striking fruits of Respighi’s interest in the modes and early music. It is in a single, multi-section movement, beginning with bold, unison rhetoric, but often striking a hushed, sometimes poignant, folk-like lyrical vein. This quite often features the viola, and Paul Cassidy audibly loves both this side of Respighi and the beautiful instrument that he plays (it was Britten’s viola, and before that Frank Bridge’s). Indeed the performances throughout are eloquent, rich-toned and full of colour and the recording is clean but warm.'