This release was made as a musical complement to an exhibit of French Impressionist art, “Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890”, a joint venture of the National Gallery, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Clark Institute. Three members of Juno’s Band–Ian Brown, Roger Chase, and Paul Watkins–have worked together in the illustrious Nash Ensemble. Violinist Jacqueline Shave used to be with the Schubert Ensemble of London. Needless to say, the ensemble’s credentials are impeccable, and there are virtually no discernible technical problems in these performances.
The Ravel Trio is very well played–just not quite on the level of the Beaux Arts Trio (Philips). Kaleidoscopic colors and true unison playing are evident throughout; the ensemble gets the misty moments in the second movement just right, and creates an appropriately enchanting atmosphere in the opening and closing statements of the first. The problem is that the music’s full picture doesn’t really come into focus because of the limited dynamic range of the recording. Both piano and strings sound washed out, with no resonance or breathing room. The sound is even more confined on headphones, which is the way gallery attendees would have experienced it. We can only imagine the disappointing experience of looking at an exhibit of colorful French Impressionist paintings while listening to the drab tones of this disc.
Fauré’s Piano Quartet suffers even more from this. The Juno’s Band players infuse the work with the necessary energy, but from an emotional standpoint, they only scratch the surface of this multi-hued score. Due to the poor sound reproduction, any rich string textures are mostly absent right from the beginning of the piece. A more extrovert interpretive view, while providing plenty of activity, mostly leaves the listener with the feeling that there’s something missing. The ensemble’s deliberate approach to the third movement, for instance, emphasizes the harmonic tension but fails to capture the more mysterious qualities evident in the spectacular version by the Domus Quartet on Hyperion. The Schubert Ensemble of London (sans Shave) takes a similar approach on its ASV Quicksilva release, but the superior sound makes it work. Since you already can buy the more profound performance of the Beaux Arts for the Ravel, and the great Domus take on the Fauré, I would pass on this one.
