Strauss, R: Sextet from Capriccio, Op. 85

“Reducing the string size of Strauss's Metamorphosen from 23 to the seven of the composer's short score… might seem to be going light on the tragic force of this great wartime elegy. Not so in the hands of the Nash Ensemble. Truthful recording does full justice to the warmth, poise and integration of these marvellous performances.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 *****

“The early and late Strauss on this finely recorded disc are separated by some 60 years: the Piano Quartet was completed in 1884, the year after Wagner's death, while Metamorphosen dates from the early months of 1945. Strauss at 20 had abundant promise: Strauss at 80 had managed to avoid lapsing intoer self-parody. The result is full of interest.
The Piano Quartet is invariably labelled 'Brahmsian' and the opening makes that association clear. Yet the piece is too loosely put together, too focused on small-scale harmonic effects, to sound like Brahms for long. Anyone looking for evidence that Strauss's true metier would be programme music and opera need look no further. It's an enjoyable piece for all that, expansively dramatic and genuinely expressive with that touch of spontaneity which signals Strauss at his best.
The Nash Ensemble bring affectionate fervour to the Quartet, without lingering excessively over its creakier transitions. A cooler touch might have been preferable with the Capriccio Prelude and Metamorphosen – the latter in particular risks overheating, with uniformly high dynamic levels. The status of this version of Metamorphosen is ambiguous, since it derives from a draft discovered in 1990. This preceded the final scoring for 23 solo strings, and one wonders if Strauss might not have revised the former in light of the latter had he wished to preserve it – especially the very awkward harmonic switch at the end, which the final version eliminates. A curiosity, then, which inevitably sounds more like a dilution of the familiar score than a genuine alternative.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The music’s autumnal soulfulness suits The Nash Ensemble’s house style to near-perfection … the same classy artistry shines through their performances of the string sextet prelude to Strauss’s last opera Capriccio, and of the much earlier Piano Quartet—Brahms and Schumann-influenced and very attractive” Classic FM Magazine

“It's something of a challenge to recast Berg's Op. 1 Piano Sonata as a work for string sextet. …this arrangement, made by the Artemis Quartet's violinist Heime Müller, works wonderfully well. …their performance of the Sextet from Strauss's Capriccio sounds equally sumptuous as does their atmospheric and highly charged account of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 *****

“…in Verklärte Nacht… the Artemis Quartet are joined by two members of the Alban Berg Quartet: the viola player Thomas Kakuska has since died, and the disc is dedicated to him. It's a memorable performance, beginning icily but generating a fiery intensity as the work's successive episodes unfold. A similar urgency and eloquence are found in the sextet which Strauss wrote as the Prelude to his last opera, Capriccio. Heime Müller's sextet arrangement of Berg's Piano Sonata is also refreshing in its resourceful transformation of this hyper-romantic music from one homogeneous medium to another.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

“Rarely can a case for live rather than studio performances have been made more persuasively than by the present disc, a study in contrasts if ever there was one. The Amadeus Quartet was celebrated for its homogeneity (accusations from critics of a plush or de luxe style were rare), yet this superb ensemble could easily accommodate other radically different players, and here Curzon's legendary nervous intensity is accentuated by the Amadeus, who join him in a performance of the Franck Quintet so supercharged it virtually tears itself apart. Taken from a 1960 Aldeburgh Festival concert, it eclipses all others (even Curzon's revelatory Decca disc). Curzon and his colleagues hurl themselves at music which clearly they see as hardly needing a cooling agent. How free and rhapsodic is Curzon's reply to the Amadeus's opening dramatico, and what a savage explosion of pent-up energy from all the players at 7'02"! Intonation may suffer in the finale's equestrian nightmare, but the concluding pages are overwhelming, and Curzon's darting crescendos at 3'56" and 58" are like snarls of defiance.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, that assuaging and elusive glory of the repertoire, played with all Gervase de Peyer's serenity and elegance. Yet again, the performance is essentially live, and has the sort of vitality and imaginative subtlety less easy to achieve or even countenance in the studio. And the same could be said of Cecil Aronowitz and William Pleeth, who join the Amadeus for Strauss's Prelude to Capriccio, aptly described in the notes as 'a sumptuous effusion of very late romanticism'. The recordings (1960-71) are vivid and immediate, and odd noises off only add to the sense of occasion. Finally, a word of warning; this performance of the Franck isn't for late-night listening: you'll sleep more peacefully after the Mozart.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Miguel Borges Coelho and the members of the Prazak Quartet play it with gusto and are especially persuasive in the witty scherzo with its almost dreamy lyrical central section...Michal Kanka and Miguel Borges Coelho, similarly, give a highly persuasive account of the Cello Sonata, lyrically passionate in the generously themed first movement, gently expressive in the rather melancholy Andante” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011

...there's a lightness, a crystalline sparkle and sheer zest about these performances that makes them bubble like chilled champagne...Blomstedt and the Leipzig orchestra bring warmth and assurance to the works, and nothing is over-heated, everything is just so. BBC Radio 3

“Strauss may have set little store by his Burleske, composed when he was 21, but this scintillating jeu d'esprit is as witty as it is dashing… Jean-Yves Thibaudet… is every inch the boulevardier enjoying a night out in Vienna. The Sextet from Capriccio... is music of infinite grace and refinement, and Blomstedt and the Gewandhaus remind you throughout of that 'forgiving affection for human beings which has always been the mainspring of Strauss's music'.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005