Of their gentle nature, three serenades in a row might be thought to be pushing things too far. Add to that a preponderance of E minor. The effect of this latter problem could have been easily ameliorated by placing the E flat Serenade between the two in E minor; an agreeable key-sequence. But no, this is to consider things without taking into account the curious ways of record-makers: instead Suk begins, Elgar and Fuchs follow.
Yet the overall effect depends more, of course, on the quality of the music than on its key-centre; and this quality is affable enough. Suk, at least as gentle as his father-in-law, Dvorak; Elgar (not often played in Switzerland, I imagine) gentle enough in his three movements, remaining unenlivened by a never written fourth; Robert Fuchs, who indeed springs to life with a third movement which anticipates the nineteenth-century gavotte as well as with a fourth which in its Hungarian associations declares (not very strongly) his Austrian nationality.
But if lack of excitement is lurking here as a potential risk, lack of pleasure in the quality of the playing is certainly not: this is absolutely splendid carrying the day with no doubt at all. The quality of recording, too, plays its part, the most agreeable string sound captured faithfully.'