Mozart thought particularly
highly of the K452 Quintet, and so he
jolly well ought. Even in the vast orchard
of Mozart's greatest music, this is
a particularly rich-tasting fruit. It's
full of warmth and wisdom, the like
of which you'll not often find in other
28-year-old composers. Its ever-resourceful
scoring is perhaps its greatest asset,
bringing to mind the wonderful 8-instrument
C minor (K388) and 13-instrument
B flat (K361) Serenades, the ornate
wind writing in the later Piano Concerto
slow movements, and in Così
fan tutte. Thematically and melodically,
it's as memorable as anything he wrote:
and harmonically, it's a feast, the
slow movement containing some of Mozart's
most romantically chromatic meanderings.
(My weaker students often suggested
that Mozart was 'predictable' - but
no one in their right mind would offer
a prize for guessing the destination
of these harmonic mystery-tours!)
A particular claim-to-fame is its cadenzas,
written out, of course, for all
instruments in the ensemble!
The coupling here is
logical, and widely adopted in rival
recordings. Beethoven's Quintet follows
very much in Mozart's wake. But, bearing
in mind that Mozart matured rapidly,
and Beethoven slowly, and that it was
written at the age of 26, you'd be right
to expect the Beethoven to be more of
a young man's piece. And so it is, with
its playful gestures and loudly assertive
statements. Although nowhere as sophisticated
or as reflective as the Mozart, it's
a confident and well-crafted piece,
which well exemplifies this early stage
of the composer's stylistic journeying.
The uniquely-scored
Kegelstatt Trio is added to this
reissue to make up the minutes. And,
charming piece that it is, and containing
as it does all three of Mozart's favourite
instruments, it's both welcome and appropriate.
It comes last on the disc, by the way.
I'd not come across
these particular recordings before,
having lived unquestioningly with the
celebrated Perahia/ECO Sony disc these
last 30-odd years. This being near-perfect,
I'd made the fatal mistake of assuming
that no one else could add to it. But
Consortium Classicum are fine musicians,
and the ADD recordings are clean and
natural.
The CD sleeve insists
that K452 is in F flat major,
by the way. An interesting typo, which
(sorry!) only technically-minded musicians
will be able to fathom. Not much music
ever ventures that far on the
flat side of C, though I can think of
some..., and of course only ever en
passant. Eight flats? One wonders
what psychological properties Mozart
- who always associated particular keys
with particular emotions, and 'remote'
keys with 'remote' emotions - would
have assigned to such a key!
Peter J Lawson
Consortium Classicum/Dieter Klöcker 
