"This is great music by any standard - with the exception of the second movement, Weber's Quintet is all gaiety, spirit, and fun, and the performance by Daniels and the Composers String Quartet is spirited, emotive, compelling, and exciting. When the music turns dark in the somber, introspective Fantasia, the performers capture the shift. Daniels sings through his clarinet throughout this movement as the music wanders through melancholy and despair. The puckish Menuetto restores the carnival-like atmosphere, segueing into the highly charged Rondo. And with much bravura and more fine, fleet-fingered playing from Daniels, the finale had on the edge of seat. Bravo!
If the Weber Quintet is beautiful, the Brahms is sublime. A few notes into the opening Allegro and you're immersed in a world of elegiac melodies which become even more lovely as the music continues. Brahms was a master of lush, golden-ripe melodies, and Op.115 is chock-full of them. The rhapsodic Adagio is chamber music at its best, the aural equivalent of robust, California Zinfandel in tall-stem glasses, served seaside at sunset. If music can swoon, this does.
As in the Weber, the musicians perform splendidly. Their intonation is impeccable, they maintain the music's pulse (varying it when called for), and convey the majestic sweeps of melody with emotion and conviction, five musicians playing as one. To be moved by the results requires no special facility; just a pair of ears and an open heart."
- Guy Lemcoe - stereophile.com
Musicians:
Clarinet – Eddie Daniels
The Composers String Quartet
