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| Mozart: The Six String Quintets | 
 enlarge | Creators: Bohuslav Zahradnik, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Talich Quartet, Karel Rehak
Label: Calliope France
Category: Music
List Price: $21.98
Buy New: $15.92
You Save: $6.06 (28%)
Buy New/Used from $13.60
Avg. Customer Rating:  (17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 81845
Format: Box Set, Import
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 1
MPN: 3231-3
UPC: 794881487820
EAN: 0794881487820
ASIN: B000026CY3
Release Date: October 12, 1999
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Great Music, Poor CD Quality August 5, 2008
I have to agree with previous reviewers on the CD quality. The music and performance is first rate; however, there is loud scratching on Disc 2 that I found unacceptable. I returned the product to Amazon for a full refund. Don't let the low price of this CD set temp you into buying it... look elsewhere for a more reputable record label.
 Great music, bad engineering May 31, 2008
AS many have observed, the music on this CD is fabulous; Mozart's best. But the engineering stinks. In addition to the scratchiness of CD#2, the sound engineers seem to have just put the volume on high for the base track throughout the whole set of CDs. As a result, you can hear every tiny note the base plays, but the melody is stuck way in the background and often can hardly be heard. I was very disappointed and after contacting Amazon, they took the set back for a refund.
PackJac
Scratchy, static sounds on Disc 2 ! February 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Although I have enjoyed disc 1 and disc 3, the disc 2 has several minutes of loud scratchy/static sounds on multiple tracks. This occurred on the original shipment I received from Amazon, and they kindly sent me a replacement disc.......and would you believe the exact same thing occurs on the replacement set!! On disc 2, in virtually the exact same spots. I wonder if Calliope Records in France has received complaints?! Dissapointing. My bad rating is not for Mozart or Talich Quartet, it is for Calliope records
 bad quality January 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
all of the CD's(total of 3) had scratcy noise behind music...otherwise
would have great listening..
Very classical Mozart April 9, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Whether you give this recording the 5 stars its awards suggest or not, will probably depend on the way you like your Mozart played. This recording by the Talich Quartet + violist Karel Rehak is very much in the classical style, low dynamic range, and relatively little vibrato. I'm not sure if they are using period instruments but it does sound like it. Add to this a rather "dry" acoustic in this French recording with not a lot of resonance and I think you will get the general picture. This works very well in the youthfully high-spirited and somewhat experimental K.178. It is worth noting here that just as Haydn can be said to have "invented" the string quartet. Mozart was the first composer of any note to use the quintet form, which he came to use in his later period in preference to the four player version, to produce some of his most characteristic, personal and individual music.
The K516 Quintet is a strange and extremely unsettling piece. Time and again the rather bouncy rhythms clash with some very tortured harmonies. Written shortly after the death of his father, with whom he had a close but not untroubled relationship, it is full of unresolved grief and forced bonhomie. The Talich's understated performance avoids most of the major issues - probably just as well, as musically this is the least successful of the six. You could hardly imagine Beethoven, still less Brahms (Mozart's greatest admirer of course) writing such a "throwaway" finale. Mozart appears here, for the time being at least, to have completely abandoned the comforts of religion and provided us with a truthful, if somewhat ugly self-portrait.
By contrast the K515 in Ut Majeur (I'm still not sure what key that is, I wish the French didn't insist on their ridiculous notation) is the Mozart we all know and love. Urbane and relaxed, it is the perfect blend of wit and seriousness - the former predominating and an absolute delight throughout. Solid playing from the Talich quartet + Karel Rehak, maybe they could have had a little more fun in the finale....
The Quintet in C minor K406 is one of the few cases where Koechel appears to have got it wrong, as it was in fact written after the two previous pieces, but as it is a rewrite of his K388 Serenade for Wind Instruments he may perhaps be forgiven. The cover notes incidentally, otherwise admirable, merely add to the confusion here. The reasons for this re-arrangement are obscure, but the result is unarguable. For me at least, this is one the most Schubertian of Mozart's pieces, with many a foretaste of "Death and the Maiden". The mood is predominantly somber and agitated and there is none of the sense of reconciliation that Brahms found later. The finale is another example of "forced jollity" but a bit better controlled than in K515, rather like dancing a polka after having witnessed someone's murder - or committed it. This is an absolutely gripping piece in which the Talich's style works to perfection.
The Clarinet Quintet is one of the finest and most beautiful pieces of music ever written and far too well known to comment on here. There have been many fine performances - sadly not this is not one of them. Chief culprit is soloist Bohuslav Zahardnik, whose stubborn refusal of both vibrato and rubato lends this otherwise most "romantic" piece (which was an absolute favorite of Brahms) a disappointingly pedestrian air, which even a very well-judged change of pace in the final movement cannot redeem. Zukerman, Menuhin and de Peyer, where were you?
Looks like it's going down to the wire - K593 and K614. If Mozart was beset by self doubt and existential angst in his final years as some have claimed, there's not a trace of it in the sparkling K593 quintet, which positively bristles with invention. The cyclic form of the first movement anticipates many 19th century works and there is some very novel use of pizzicato. The final movement, part rondo, part canon, part fugue is almost bewildering in its array of musical ideas. The acoustic also seems better on the final disc with a lot more resonance. If K406 was Schubertian, then this is most definitely Beethoven at his lively early best and I am pleased to relate that the Talich Quartet + Karel Rehak give this brilliant piece an appropriately brilliant performance, full of contrast and energy as well as immaculate precision.
I can't quite make up my mind about K614. This was the first time I'd heard it and despite a bright opening with "hunting" motifs and some complex writing in the finale I found it disappointingly slight, as of course Mozart can be, nothing wrong with the performance and maybe I'm missing something, but it surely needed a "bigger", more contrasting, slow movement.
What's the final verdict: to be honest I've got to say mixed. There isn't a performance in this set that says, "unforgettable". On the other hand there isn't an absolute stinker either and if you like the 18th century sound and very classical interpretations then there is a lot on these records you can enjoy.
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