I am reminded by RO's review of the Solisti Veneti performance (Erato/RCA) that Rossini wrote these boyhood works for just four instruments namely two violins (the second of which he played himself), cello and double-bass. Here, as with I Solisti, the music is presented in an arrangement for string orchestra; I have not heard the pieces in the original preferred by RO, but find them attractive in this form while having my curiosity aroused as to the sound as first imagined. One might not expect a Soviet chamber ensemble to be very idiomatic in such music, but in fact the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra play with good tone and style and their director Eduard Serov brings to the music a generally sure sense of tempo and balance, and a convincing tonal and rhythmic lilt. Just once or twice I wondered whether an Allegro could have had a little more space, e.g. the first movement of Sonata No. 2, but in fact his timing in this movement is longer than that of I Solisti Veneti. Can the apparent reference to the Moonlight Sonata in the following Andantino have been intentional, and did the 12-year-old Rossini know that music? This movement has a solemnly Germanic start to it too, as does the Andante in No. 3, certainly suggesting that this boy knew some Beethoven: in fact, he was called Tedeschino, the little German, by his peers.
Serov is fortunate in having a particularly good double-bassist too—it seems to be just one player—who can blend easily with the other strings or emerge with distinctive character, as in the buffo variations of the finale of Sonata No. 3. Altogether the youthful charm and copious inventiveness of these pieces comes over well and the voice of the future Rossini is already foreshadowed in such a sparkling movement as the finale of No. 5 with its dancing dotted rhythms. While the recording is not recent, dating as it does from 1982 and being analogue, digitally remastered, it sounds very convincing. Indeed, I would not have guessed that it was not digital from the start. The mid price is attractive, but don't forget that only five of the six sonatas are played. Just a word of warning to anyone with absolute pitch: this ensemble choose an unusually high tuning, something like a quarter tone above I Solisti Veneti.
The Solisti performance on Erato has the great advantage that, unlike the Soviet ensemble, they play all six sonatas. The playing is rich in tone and warm in spirit and the recording especially mellow: it's a very different sound from the one accorded the Leningrad players but just as satisfying in its own way. A full price disc, but worth it.'