Flute Quartets K.285, K.285a, K.285b, K298
Sonora Slocum (Flute)
Joel Link (Violin)
Milena Pajaro-Van de Stadt (Viola)
Brook Speltz (Cello)
Acis APL98573
Full Price
The Review
There is something luxuriously domestic about this recording. The quartet feel appropriately as if they are in a not particularly grand 18th century drawing room on a pleasant New England Autumn evening.
In fact there were in the Field Concert Hall in Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music in early January 2020 but the aural illusion is perfect for the music. Slocum and her friends have an easy authority that presents but does not push Mozart’s glories.
Slocum is Principal Flute of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Link and Pajaro-Van de Stadt are half of the Dover Quartet and Speltz is the cellist of the Escher Quartet but they were all together as students at Curtis a dozen years ago. That relaxed sense of friendship translates into a really fine chamber ensemble. Nothing is rushed, nothing drags or tries to be Prussian pompous. The balance is lovely too. The strings could easily be outgunned by the flute when it is mic’ed this close but they don’t.
As a flautist, Slocum is immaculate, not too breathy but equally her attack is delicate and matches the charm offensive coming from the strings. For her, this is a very personal recording, marking a recovery from family grief and with excellent liner notes written by her grandmother, a professor of mediaeval history but graduate of the Julliard. Rightly, she gives the impression that while Mozart may not have enjoyed composing these quartets and saw them as a tiresome chore, none of that translates into the music itself. The two movement Third Quartet may be the battleground of scholars, with its snippets of the Gran Partita, but is actually the most delightful and a good counterweight to the more conventional and serious First.
Sometimes a disc comes out that just does what it says on the cover thoroughly well and will find itself pulled off the shelf often as a reliable pleasure. This is one such. Firmly recommended.
SM