Ensemble 415 - Boccherini: String Sextets (2002)

Last year Boccherini's string sextets made their debut on CD in the commemorative set issued by Capriccio (5/93); only one of the four works recorded by the German group is on the present disc, so happily all six of the Op. 23 collection, one of the peaks of Boccherini's output, are now available. These are quite extraordinarily beautiful pieces, rich in sound, mostly contemplative in mood. The first (the one work duplicated on the Capriccio recording) in particular has much slow-moving music, enlivened in the opening movement by sudden outbursts and passages with rapid figuration, generally for the first violin or first cello, but the Larghetto enters into those realms of melancholy that seem to be very personal to Boccherini. Lastly there is a minuet with three trios, the last of them minore and with cello writing that is both eloquent and florid. All the minuets here are unorthodox in some way—that of No. 2 is a sustained, inward piece, that of No. 5 full of D minor pathos expressed in imitative contrapuntal writing but with a trio full of dance-like rhythms. No. 2 is also graced with a witty and brilliant finale, No. 5 with an opening Grave for muted strings including some remarkable and highly expressive decorative writing (followed by a vivid Allegro with some very curious textures).
Ensemble 415 have distinguished themselves in Boccherini before, and this disc is full of beautiful, fine-drawn, sensitive playing, very much alert to the mercurial moods of Boccherini's music, and with Chiara Banchini as delicate as can be imagined with his filigree lines—but also full-blooded when the music so demands. Period instruments and restrained use of vibrato give a welcome airiness to the textures. I can't imagine performances that catch more truly the special nature of Boccherini's muse.'