Mozart: 6 String Quintets on Historical Instruments [Triple Album]

Stereophile

Mozart’s six string quintets, composed for two violins, two violas, and a cello, span the length of his compositional maturity. The first, in B-flat Major K.174, was completed in Salzburg at the end of 1773, when he was 17. The last two were written within a year of his death.

There aren’t many recordings of these quintets on the instruments Mozart expected to hear, which makes this recording essential. Dynamic contrasts and soundstage width are less than on some modern instrument recordings, but in return we gain timbral contrasts—especially on viola—and clarity that enhance pleasure and understanding immensely.

Spunicunifait, a spun-for-the-occasion ensemble consisting of five young European string players with impressive credentials, takes its name from a word Mozart included in a letter to his cousin. Its meaning isn’t completely clear, but the humor it embodies manifests in Spunicunifait’s delightful performance of the first quintet’s opening movement. The 1st’s Adagio is fetchingly delicate, and its third movement minuet is quintessentially Mozartian in its songfulness. The final movement is a prime example of the sublime mixture of play and refinement that makes much of Mozart’s writing so endearing. Curiously, the recording includes a zippier, alternative performance of the quintet’s final Allegro without any explanation.

Where Spunicunifait’s interpretations fall short are in some of the slow movements. In the two most famous of Mozart’s quintets, No.3 in C Major, K.515 and No.4 in G minor, K.516, the music that expresses the soul of these masterpieces is taken too fast for my taste. By contrast, Quatuor Ébène is among many modern instrument ensembles that far more successfully touch the heart by devoting a full minute more to each of these movements.

Jason Victor Serinus