This interpretation of Mozart’s Quintet K.452 comes the closest to that of Murray Perahia and the ECO winds on Sony, a performance that has taken on all comers since its initial release at the end of the LP era. There are so many similarities that only a couple of minor details will make the difference in a recommendation. The well-judged tempos are nearly identical in both versions, allowing Mozart’s supple wind lines to flow freely without becoming either harried or stilted. Of course the Berliners are amazing players, and they create one of the best wind ensemble sounds in the business. They also play this music with a supremely confident sense of style that until now I’d only experienced from the ECO performers.
However, there are moments on this BIS recording in which the Berlin players surpass their ECO counterparts: the lush chords of the second section of the Larghetto are followed by ideally gentle solo calls; the interplay between piano and winds is excellent, most notably throughout the Allegretto finale; and Henning Trog’s descending bassoon line in the Largo intro to the first movement is one of the smoothest things I’ve heard in years. (The only blemish anywhere is the badly out of tune chord at the very end of that intro.) The performance is further enhanced by one of Stephen Hough’s usual sensitive, very musical contributions, aided by the warmly recorded sound of his Steinway–significantly better than the recording of Perahia’s instrument, which suffers from a slight harshness in the upper register.
The performance of the Quintet is so excellent that it makes the rest of this review that much harder to write. Nearly all other recordings of this work are paired with Beethoven’s Op. 16 Quintet for the same forces. An attempt at something fresh is always welcome to an overburdened catalog, but the rest of the works included here just don’t qualify. Michael Hasel, the flutist of the group, has arranged six short works that he felt “cry out for a [wind] quintet arrangement”. These were originally intended for various instruments including clockwork organ and basset horns. Hasel’s arrangements are intelligently idiomatic, and of course the Berliners play beautifully, but none of this music is of very high quality. These pieces are better heard in their intended forms, and can be found in recordings on the appropriate instruments (among the Philips Mozart Collection, for example).
