Search - Rossini, Dieltiens, Ensemble Explorations :: Rossini: Sonate a quattro (String Symphonies) - No. 1 in G Major; No. 2 in A Major; No. 4 in B-flat Major; No. 5 in E-flat Major

Twelve Years Old! Yikes!

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 11/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Imagine if 12-year-old Gioacchino and 12-year-old Wolfgang had been schoolmates and play fellows! Would Rossini and Mozart have spurred each other to even greater heights, or would they have dueled to the death with musical light-sabres? Of course, they were a full generation apart in age, and the evidence is clear in these quartets and in the later operas that Wolfgang did spur Gioacchino to his greatest efforts.



These four quartet-divertimenti need no apology based on the composer's age. They are very fine 18th C works written in 1804, equal in complexity and invention to anything Haydn wrote up to the last decade of his long composing life. There are passages of pure musical formulae, but there are also large moments of dazzling bravura. Rossini's essential character is already in evidence: an innovative conservative, a composer for whom profundity was just another affect, however powerful, above all a craftsman. These youthful works intended, not to show off, but to be entertaining, and that they are.



The performance by Ensemble Explorations is perfect, full of sprightliness but not overstated, innocent without being condescending. The CD sound quality is excellent. This performance is well worth hearing more than once, so my recommendation is... buy it!"