Boccherini: Quintets

Advantages: Haunting, passionate music to get lost in.
Disadvantages: It's classical and this puts people off before they even try it.

...It is entirely due to Floon’s enthusiastic review of Schubert’s Quintet that I am writing this. I was browsing the classical reviews seeking some recommendations to try and happened upon this. I only have one example of Schubert in my collection (Rosamund) and quite enjoy it so thought I would give this a go too. So off to the Library I went and returned clutching The Raphael Ensemble’s superb rendition of the String quintet. Oh joy – Oh heaven I seem to have hit the jackpot of chamber music. Schubert’s life is the quintessential example of the romantic notion of the neglected genius who dies in obscurity. An entire generation passed before his most substantial achievements even saw the light of day. The quintet is among them. It was one of his last works written only weeks before he died at such a tragically young age of 31... Read review

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Advantages: Music to take you beyond this world
Disadvantages: Needs a bit of patience

...Patient if it helps) was written for a harpsichord player called Goldberg to play to his employer, a minor nobleman who suffered from insomnia. You or I might nowadays turn on the radio to help us to sleep; the nobleman sent for Goldberg. Chamber music is just music for a small number of instruments – anything from one to ten or so. The work I want to convince you is worth your while this time is the String Quintet by Schubert. Right – let me guess: your eyes have glazed over and you’re wondering why you even read this far! It’s the label thing again: if I’d called it Franz Meets His Maker you might have been slightly less put off. Just bear with me, OK? ******Franz Schubert…****** Poor Schubert lived a short life: born 1797, snuffed out in 1828 by syphilis, which dominated the last four years of his life. Yet in his thirty... Read review

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Advantages: Great performances of popular favourites and some rare gems
Disadvantages: Barely none, with perhaps slight issues with sound.

.... Berlioz: La Reine Mab from Roméo et Juliette (7:26) 10. Berlioz: Rákóczy March (4:34) 11. Berlioz: Royal Hunt and Storm from Les Troyens (9:37) 12. Boccherini: Menuetto from Quintet in E major (3:22) 13. Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.1 (2:51) Disc 2 1. Chabrier: Joyeuse Marche (3:36) 2. Chabrier: Idylle from Suite Pastorale (4:04) 3. Delibes: Pizzicati from Sylvia (2:07) 4. Delibes: Variation sur un thème slavique from Coppélia (6:32) 5. Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (7:08) 6. Dvorak: Slavonic Dance, Op.46 No.3 (5:54) 7-9. Elgar: String Serenade in E minor, Op.20 (12:15) 10. Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody No.1 (11:58) 11. Fauré: Le Pas espagnol from Dolly Suite (2:41) 12. Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits (6:07) 13. Gounod: La Valse de Faust (5:24) 14. Gounod: Funeral March of a Marionette (3:32) 15. Grainger... Read review

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