This well-planned programme
of known, half-known and unknown18th
century music - the sort of thing Naxos
does so well - squeezes two welcome
rarities between much more familiar
Mozart pieces.
The best known here
is the wholly delightful Oboe Quartet
in F, K370 - a fun-piece if ever there
was one, despite venturing briefly into
the minor-key shade in its beautiful
slow movement.
The Crusell Divertimento
(scored for the same combination as
both K370 and Bach) dates from 1822.
It’s more of a concerto piece than the
rest of the disc, requiring a virtuosic
almost operatic personality from the
soloist. Don’t underestimate it before
you hear it! It’s beautifully crafted,
and - as you might expect from an albeit
minor contemporary of Weber, Schubert
and Bellini - there’s an abundance of
early-Romantic colouring, despite its
obviously-Classical roots. Every commonplace
idea is balanced by an agreeable surprise.
The London Bach’s two-movement
Quartet is elegant and diverting, as
almost always, but pretty lightweight.
Most of us will find
the so-called ‘Oboe Quintet’ - the most
substantial item, however you measure
substance - the most interesting. I
was referring to this piece when I spoke
of ‘half-known’ Mozart in my introduction.
No mere curiosity, this is in fact the
same piece as the Serenade in C minor
(dating from 1782) for two oboes, two
clarinets, two horns and two bassoons,
which Mozart himself arranged and published
five or six years later as the String
Quintet in C minor. Its appearance here
in an uncredited arrangement for oboe
and string quartet is, if I may be forgiven
for using the word, wholly ‘viable’.
Doubly so, because it uses two violas
instead of two violins (like the Horn
Quintet, K407 - an admirable precedent)
in order better to preserve the scoring
of contrasted pairs inherent in both
of Mozart’s versions. Of course an Oboe
Quintet thus constituted manages to
be a near-perfect compromise between
the sound worlds of Wind Octet and String
Quintet. Unauthentic though it may be
it has no problem justifying itself.
One can hardly object to the preponderance
of the solo oboe, either, as this is
an undoubted characteristic of the original
Serenade, testing as it does the stamina
of even the most experienced players.
Only in the extraordinary inverted double
counterpoint of the Menuetto in canone
does one miss the integrity of Mozart’s
first or second scoring - that’s impossible
to sustain with this combination of
instruments. Actually, the Serenade
is no such thing: no serenade, I mean.
It’s a powerfully-argued, dark-hued
piece, typical of so much mature minor-key
Mozart, with an intensity and seriousness
of purpose light worlds away from the
divertissement implied by its original
title.
Max Artved is principal
oboe with the Danish Radio Symphony
Orchestra, and his colleagues on this
disc are fellow players in the same
ensemble. They are well-honed musicians,
both individually and collectively:
the urgency and unity of their playing
in the C minor Serenade-Quintet is most
compelling. You may, like me, occasionally
wish for fractionally more spacious
tempi, if only to give more time for
phrases to breathe? Artved himself plays
divinely, with a seductively beautiful
tone, an impeccable sense of style,
and wonderfully precise articulation.
The two perfectly-focused top Fs in
the Mozart Quartet bring an irresistible
smile of admiration and satisfaction:
this really is top-drawer oboe-playing,
deserving of the most lavish praise!
Unsurprisingly, the
sound, originating with Danish Radio,
is outstanding, and the liner notes
informative. Go buy yet another Naxos!
Peter J Lawson
see also review
by Patrick Waller
Max Artved (oboe), Elise Båtnes (violin),
Tue Lautrup (violin, viola), Dimitri Golovanov
(viola), Lars Holm Johansen (cello) 
