I bought this set after a slight disappointment with L'Archibudelli's disc of the quintets. Not only is this one cheaper, it has twice as much music and I prefer the performances. I listened to the A major quintet in both versions and the obvious difference is in the pitch and the overall sound. Hausmusik (H) is lower in pitch and the sound is richer, warmer, with less high frequencies, while the modern pitch that L'Archibudelli (A) use results in a brilliant, highly polished sound, almost as if there were four violins rather than two and two violas. There are two main effects on the music: first, when there are several lines at once in the music it is difficult to disentangle them in A, the upper instruments tend to get in each other's way. In H the inner parts are much more clearly audible because of the distinctive darker colour of the violas and the less assertively bright violin sound. This is particularly noticeable in the middle of the 1st movement where violas have important low-placed figures while the violins have the main melody; also at one point in the last movement, you can even hear a humble viola accompaniment if you listen carefully to H, but it doesn't get a chance in A.
Second, the range of tone colour in H is much greater, since the viola sound is clearly different from the violins. The best example is at the beginning of the slow movement: there is a particular hushed, dark, intimate quality to H which is lacking in the other performance. This is one place where the composer's life really did influence the music - the movement was a tribute to a friend who had recently died, so a dark elegaic quality is appropriate. Also, in the whole piece in fact, H has more contrast between loud and soft.
Other aspects also favoured this performance. The leader of A, while throwing off semiquavers with the best of them, is somewhat at a loss in sustaining long melodic lines, and suffers at times from a wobbly bow when trying to play softly. In the slow movement marked "sostenuto", the main melody is anything but, being cut into bar-long pieces by the "expressive" phrasing. H is not ideal in this either, but does give a sense of a continuous melody. At one point in the last movement a new theme in long notes comes in on the first violin and is passed to the other instruments. All the players in A and H play it legato - except the leader of A, who for some reason plays the crucial first entry in a light, detached way, as if it was just another accompanying part, or even not noticing that it's an important new theme! Musically it makes little sense, because the other instruments then seem to contradict the first violin rather than replying to or imitating it.
Most of the tempos were quite similar, but the 3rd movement scherzo is quicker in H, which along with the darker tone quality creates more character in the music, an hushed, frantic, almost conspiratorial fugue which foreshadows other Mendelssohn scherzos. In comparison A sounds like a counterpoint exercise.
So A is a technically brilliant, bright-sounding performance, but this set (H) reveals the depth and character that A misses.
