Under most any other circumstances, the Ensemble Villa Musica’s latest contribution to its series of Mozart string quintets would merit a strong recommendation. Made up of former soloists from the major German orchestras, the group’s vivid and lovingly played accounts are marked by a fastidious penchant for detail, characterized up front by the attention given each and every repeat in the score (including the second repeats in the first movement and every repeat after the da capo in the Menuetto sections). So, sticklers for textual fidelity will be pleased with these performances. Unfortunately, Ensemble Villa Musica and nearly all of its competitors have to contend with the remarkable three-disc set featuring the Talich Quartet (with violist Karel Rehak) on Calliope, which bests this entry not only in interpretation but price (3 for the price of 1–type Q497 in Search Reviews).
From the outset, the Talich set offers a more intimate (albeit drier) acoustic that really brings out the warmth, sudden dynamic changes, and the inner voices so essential to these works. By contrast, DG offers a more open soundstage but the recording suffers from a bit too much reverberation. For instance, in the D major quintet, the dynamic forte-piano transitions sound smeared in the Allegro section; a similar problem occurs in the opening of the Menuetto. The reverb issue causes some odd balances as well: 27 measures before the first repeat in the Allegro, the cello’s slurred eighth-note passage (an incidental moment, to be sure) sounds uncoupled from the rest of the ensemble, as if it were playing 20 feet away.
Another consequence of Calliope’s bias toward closer miking is that you hear the subtleties of each player’s performance. In the second part of the first movement of the G minor quintet, you can experience the minute differences between a sforzando-piano and mezzo-forte-piano. Furthermore, the first violin is better articulated in the first movement during its early solo passages and the quartet achieves more dynamic interest in transition sections (the crescendo in the descending staccato eighth-note leading into the main theme after the second repeat, for example). Finally, the Talich’s opening of the D major is quite a bit more dramatic, where the cellist really digs into those deep forte pedal tones.
