(+++) PERSONAL PIANO-PLUS

Brahms: Sonata No. 1 for Clarinet or Viola and Piano; Meine Lieder, Op. 106, No. 4; Intermezzo in B minor, Op. 119, No. 1; Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No. 2; Wie Melodien zieht es mir, Op. 105, No. 1; Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles. Helen Habershon, clarinet; John Lenehan, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.

Robin Stevens: Music for Cello and Piano. Nicholas Trygstad, cello; David Jones, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.

Music for Violin and Piano by Bernstein, Solano, Piazzolla, Khachaturian, Gardel, Still, Granados, Rimsky-Korsakov, Albéniz, and Coleridge-Taylor. Aisha Syed Castro, violin; Martin Labazevitch, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.

     Three recent and very different Divine Art recordings manage to show, singly and together, the extent to which the piano – combined with another instrument, whether string or wind – can produce highly personalized recitals of works that sometimes contrast strongly, sometimes seem to exist in parallel, and sometimes seem to be combined in a basically arbitrary way. Exceptionally high-quality playing is a characteristic of all the recordings and is in fact a major reason for listeners to consider owning them. The music offered, however, in the mixtures in which it is presented, tends to be of less interest than the skill of the performers playing it.

     Thus, the exemplary presentation of clarinet-and-piano works by Helen Habershon and John Lenehan is impressive and engaging from start to finish. But the choice of pieces to offer in this recital is simply strange. Brahms’ Op. 120 sonatas for clarinet (or viola) and piano have always been seen as a pair, including by the composer himself, and while there is certainly no mandate to perform both of them, it is hard to understand why a listener would want a disc that offers only No. 1 – and why performers would want to take this work out of its context as the first piece of two. This might be understandable if Habershon or Lenehan had discovered a piece of worth comparable to that of the Brahms sonata and wanted listeners to have a chance to compare and contrast the works. But that is not the case at all. Instead, the performers offer four Lenehan arrangements of late Brahms music that was not written or intended for this instrumental duo; and while Lenehan does a fine job crafting versions of these pieces that are effective in clarinet-and-piano guise, there simply seems to be no reason for doing so beyond being capable of this form of creativity. Again, everything is well-played, but to what purpose? The musical waters are further muddied by the other material on the disc that was written originally for clarinet and piano: Five Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956). These are very pleasant, very nicely made, very minor and very evanescent pieces, more like a set of five encores than anything substantial. They fall squarely into the “light music” category, which is a perfectly respectable place to be; but they simply do not fit with the Brahms sonata and the four arrangement oddities transformed by Lenehan from Brahms’ originals. Interestingly, since the entire CD runs just 53 minutes, there would have been plenty of room on it to include both Brahms Op. 120 sonatas and still keep the Finzi and Brahms-arrangement material as, perhaps, curtain raisers and encores. The decision not to do this indicates that the selection of music here is quite deliberate and is in service of – well, what, exactly, is not quite clear. The disc is worth hearing for the quality of the playing but is disappointingly arbitrary in the specific material that Habershon and Lenehan choose to present.

     Matters of repertoire are considerably clearer on a cello-and-piano disc featuring Nicholas Trygstad and David Jones: the entire CD is devoted to music of Robin Stevens (born 1958). This is a disc of generous length – 78 minutes; and that raises the question of what sort of audience is expected to want this amount of chamber music by this single composer. This is not to say that Stevens’ cello-and-piano music (or solo-cello music, some of which is also included here) is uninteresting. In fact, much of it is quite listenable and seems genuinely to have things to say. On the other hand, a number of the pieces here are trifles, not all that different conceptually from the Five Bagatelles of fellow British composer Finzi, although Stevens’ harmonic language is more distinctly modern (if not, in and of itself, more distinctive). Eleven of the dozen works on this CD were created in the 21^st century; all are world première recordings. And so the question is raised again: for whom is the disc intended? It begins with by far the most substantial composition offered here: Sonata Romantica (2019), an extended (indeed, somewhat overextended) 27-minute foray into expressiveness that is in fact Romantic in some ways while being post-Romantic in others and pseudo-Romantic in still others. There is a lot of material here, and Stevens is determined to present all of it with seriousness – which is how Trygstad and Jones perform it. The earnestness is undoubted, but the work as a whole is a bit “much of a muchness,” interesting to hear once but not the sort of piece to which listeners are likely to return again and again. Indeed, Stevens is more effective and often more expressive when he creates in miniature. No other piece on the CD lasts as long as seven minutes, and nine works or movements are less than two minutes long. Two of those nine do not last even 60 seconds. They are movements of the earliest work here, Three Epigrams (1994), which immediately follows the sprawling Sonata Romantica and provides the strongest possible contrast to it. The epigrams are designated “Foreboding,” “Gentle Lament,” and “Clockwork Toy,” and their straightforward simplicity is winning, as is Stevens’ willingness here to make small points and then simply stop. The remaining pieces on the CD are of various types. Carried on a Whimsy (2016/2020), for solo cello, is followed by Three Character Pieces (2004/2021) – another triple helping of brief, focused cello-and-piano works. Sospiri (2016) for solo cello sighs appropriately; On the Wild Side (2018/2020) for cello and piano is actually fairly well-behaved; A Probing Exchange (2016) for solo cello is short and amusing. This is followed by the five-short-movement Balmoral Suite (2017) for cello and piano – yet another collection of effective little pieces, this one with a strong family orientation that is well-described by the movement titles: “The Family Gathers,” “Grandpa Hankers for the Past,” “A Graceful Beauty,” “Enter Great-Grandpa,” and “Rough and Tumble in the Nursery.” Stevens is particularly adept at encapsulating the portraits of family members of various ages, with the final and shortest movement providing a suitably upbeat and enthusiastic conclusion. This suite would have made a fine conclusion to the CD, but there are still four pieces to come. One for solo cello, complete with ellipsis in its title, is Much Ado About …? (2016). It is a short character piece, not unlike several others here, but is a standalone rather than part of a suite. Say Yes to Life (2005), for cello and piano, is somewhat more substantial (five-and-a-half minutes) and more serious, if not exactly deep; Unfailing Stream (2016), for solo cello, is even longer (this is the almost-seven-minute work), and it is sincere and involving, if perhaps a bit overstated. The disc concludes in appropriately lighthearted form with A Birthday Trifle (2018) for cello and piano, which shows in less than two minutes just how skillfully Stevens writes for these instruments and just how neatly he can keep matters on the lighter side when he is not trying a touch too hard to be important and expressively earnest. Many listeners will find material to enjoy on this disc, although its totality will likely be a bit much for most.

     If the diversity of material on the Stevens disc showcases the composer’s interests and predilections, the hodgepodge offered by violinist Aisha Syed Castro and pianist Martin Labazevitch strictly reflects the performers’ concerns. That is, it reflects those of Castro (born 1989), who is clearly the driving force behind this recording. She is a violinist of considerable feeling, one quite unashamed of wearing her heart on her instrument’s sleeve, and one as comfortable with melodious pop-style music as with melodious classical pieces. Of the 13 works on this disc, 12 are essentially encores, pieces to display Castro’s technique at spinning musical stories and, from time to time, allowing her to offer virtuosity for its own sake. The extent to which the CD’s arrangement is capricious – or, more accurately, highly personal, based on Castro’s predilections – is shown by her inclusion of three separate excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, which are the first, ninth and 11^th works on the disc. Her interest in this theater music is obvious; her lack of interest in any cohesiveness in presenting it is equally clear. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this: the CD is a showcase for Castro (with Labazevitch backing her up ably and suitably unobtrusively), and the idea is clearly to appeal to listeners interested in some fine violin playing and not overly concerned about the repertoire on display. Certainly Castro has an eclectic taste in short, not-especially-deep music. There is a little here from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and from Khachaturian’s Gayaneh. There are Kreisler’s arrangements of a Granados Spanish dance and a tango by Albéniz (Kreisler also did the Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement). There is an arrangement by pianist Labazevitch of the traditional Aisha’s Prayer, clearly chosen because the title reflects the violinist’s name. And there is one piece here that is slightly more than an encore: the three-movement Suite for Violin and Piano by William Grant Still, which appears midway through the recording and provides a welcome chance to hear Castro perform music of somewhat greater length and depth than is offered on the rest of the CD. There are some less-familiar pieces here to complement the better-known ones, and everything is handled with assured style and a strong sense of Castro’s personal engagement with the material. The disc is not really very satisfying on a musical basis, but it will appeal to listeners already familiar with Castro and to those whose enjoyment comes more from engaging with very well-done performances than from what specifically is performed.

(++++) SERIOUS APPROACHES TO A SERIOUS DISEASE

Conquer Your Diabetes: Prevention, Control, Remission. By Martin Abrahamson, M.D., and Sanjiv Chopra, M.D. Abrahamson Chopra Publishing. $24.95.

     The title of this knowledgeable, intelligent, clearly written book is a trifle misleading: one does not so much conquer diabetes as come to terms with it and learn to live with it – ameliorating its effects as much as possible. Certainly Harvard Medical School’s Martin Abrahamson and Sanjiv Chopra, who jointly direct the Division of Continuing Medical Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, have the bona fides to instruct patients as well as doctors in what diabetes is all about, how to avoid it if possible, and how to cope with it if avoidance proves futile or is simply impossible.

     The book starts with patient-success stories, the underlying assertion being that “having a successful life with diabetes and not letting diabetes dictate” the terms of your life “takes work but is possible.” The authors mention patients they have known and also discuss a few celebrity cases of diabetes, trying to show readers that this disease – both Type 1 and Type 2 – can affect people of all sorts, from all walks of life, and in fact “has afflicted humans for thousands of years.” The terms diabetes comes from the ancient Greek word for “siphon” and refers to the way patients appeared to the Greeks to pass urine. Treatment was essentially nonexistent until the discovery of insulin, an event that led to the awarding of a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923 – although insulin’s composition was not actually discovered until 1955 (research that resulted in another Nobel Prize award). The importance of insulin can scarcely be overstated, since diabetes, the authors explain, is the world’s most common metabolic disorder, affecting some 460 million people. Ninety-five percent of those people have Type 2 diabetes, for which insulin is helpful and sometimes necessary; the other 5% have Type 1, an autoimmune disease formerly called “juvenile diabetes” because of its typical early-in-life onset – and for Type 1, insulin is essential.

     Abrahamson and Chopra proceed methodically through their discussion of the history, effects and dangers of diabetes, noting that while Type 1 is not preventable, Type 2 can frequently be headed off through lifestyle modifications including weight loss, regular exercise, and dietary modification. “People who are motivated and can adhere to dietary modifications and an exercise regimen that leads to weight loss can prevent diabetes [from] developing indefinitely,” they assert – a statement that is scarcely new or surprising, but that is foundational to their presentation. Abrahamson and Chopra talk about clinical trials, medications, complications of the disease, cutting-edge research, and more. But again and again, they come back to variations on their basic recommendations regarding Type 2. In discussing prevention of nerve damage from diabetes, for instance, they call for “optimal control of blood glucose levels, smoking cessation, optimal control of blood pressure, optimal control of blood lipids,” and “optimal weight.” So patients cannot turn to Conquer Your Diabetes for easy or quick-fix solutions, many of which can be found in irresponsible corners of the Internet, relying on fad diets, “nutraceuticals” and other supplements, and no small dose of magical/wishful thinking.

     One difficulty for patients reading this book is that, in common with a great deal of modern medical writing, it makes clear how interconnected different body parts and the treatment of different conditions can be. This approach is actually a refreshingly holistic one within medicine, attempting to reconcile Western healthcare’s preoccupation with specific diseases and disease sites with the reality that no portion of the body can generally be treated without reference to other parts and, indeed, to the body as a whole. Unfortunately, the explanation of interconnectedness is likely to leave diabetes or prediabetes patients concerned that making one condition better can easily make others worse. For instance, regarding blood glucose levels, Abrahamson and Chopra point out that cholesterol-lowering, heart-protective statins can raise those levels – so how should patients feel about taking them? Abrahamson and Chopra mention a 2012 study saying that the benefits of statins outweigh the diabetes hazard, but that decade-old research is all that they cite, and readers are likely to be left worrying that caring for their heart may raise their diabetes risk. Antipsychotic medicines are also associated with diabetes, Abrahamson and Chopra point out, adding, however, that the drugs “should be continued if appropriate.” Similarly, thiazides (used for hypertension) may raise glucose levels, especially in higher doses. Nothing Abrahamson and Chopra say about these medicines is incorrect, but their scientific detachment in explaining the issues will do little to reassure worried patients who may have diabetes plus one or more comorbidities, or may be under treatment for other conditions and are now worried about adding diabetes to the list.

     The recommendations in Conquer Your Diabetes are unexceptionable and presented clearly and soberly. “Choose a diet that you will be able to adhere to long-term,” Abrahamson and Chopra write, “and enjoy the ritual of sharing food with family or friends.” And “seek the advice of a nutritionist for nutrition counseling.” Fine ideas, these, and certainly helpful for heading off diabetes or controlling it. Now, in the real world, what is the insurance coverage for nutrition counseling? How can careful attention to the specifics of the Mediterranean diet be reconciled with people’s income levels? With their work schedules? With their children’s and families’ nutritional needs? With their time and location constraints? These are the sorts of questions that will immediately occur to many readers – in some cases because of a lack of desire to change ingrained habits, but in others because these real-world concerns really do stand in the way of adopting the sensible approaches outlined by Abrahamson and Chopra.

     What is missing in Conquer Your Diabetes is attention to the psychological barriers to adoption of the authors’ approach. Abrahamson and Chopra are clinicians and clinical instructors, not psychotherapists, and within their field of expertise, what they have to say is to the point, carefully researched, and presented forthrightly. To them, with their experience, much of what they recommend is self-evident, or would be if people only had the necessary information – which Conquer Your Diabetes exists to provide. But even people who learn what is best for their health often face substantial barriers, from external circumstances to internal psychological issues, that make it hard (if not impossible) to do what doctors such as Abrahamson and Chopra know it is best to do. Conquer Your Diabetes is packed with important, highly useful information presented in a direct manner with a strong appeal to readers’ brains. But one part of holistic medicine involves realizing that clinicians must win over patients’ hearts and minds in order to gain acceptance of recommendations that many people, rightly or wrongly, find very difficult to follow. Conquer Your Diabetes is a first-rate guide for people already committed to the “takes work but is possible” notion of controlling the disease. What it does not do, what it is not equipped to do, is to instill that commitment in readers who are not already in possession of it.

(++++) STRINGING MOZART ALONG

Mozart: Sonatas for Violin and Piano (complete). Andrew Smith, violin; Joshua Pierce, piano. MSR Classics. $49.95 (6 CDs).

     Very little of Mozart’s music receives backhanded compliments, as opposed to forthright ones. There may be some not-quite-complimentary commentary on an occasional incomplete work or one that seems to misfire, such as the partial opera L’oca del Cairo, but by and large, everything by Mozart is discussed with seriousness, often bordering on awe, and with the most sincere appreciation of the musical polymath’s genius in so many genres involving so many instruments.

     Mozart’s violin works, though, tend to engender praise that sometimes seems almost apologetic. His five violin concertos are frequently performed and recorded, as are several short violin-and-orchestra pieces associated with the completed concertos, but Mozart’s own strong preference for writing for and performing on the piano tends to lead performers and commentators alike to give these works somewhat short shrift. That applies even more strongly to Mozart’s violin-and-piano sonatas – most of which the composer himself designated as for piano and violin, lending further credence to the notion that Mozart’s own performing skills on the violin (not to mention the viola!) never led him to a genuine liking for the instrument.

     The Andrew Smith/Joshua Pierce recording of Mozart’s complete violin-and-piano sonatas (or piano-and-violin ones, if you prefer) gives the lie, once and for all, to the notion that Mozart’s works of this type are somehow not quite worthy of his other music. Smith and Pierce simply refuse to apologize for or downplay any of these pieces, even lending their considerable performance talents to the little sonatas written when the composer was all of eight years old. This excellent six-CD MSR Classics release consists of live recordings of half a dozen radio performances from 2019, and the circumstances seem to have inspired Smith and Pierce, who deliver the works with ease, grace, and that marvelous sense of camaraderie that chamber-music players seem to achieve most strongly when they are not doing “take” after “take” in a recording studio.

     As fine as the playing is, the presentation of the sonatas is scarcely without flaws. The instruments are modern ones, and while the performers certainly have a good sense of Mozart’s style, it would be stretching things to call these “historically informed” readings. The piano, in particular, is significantly more sonorous than the instruments of Mozart’s time, and since in many sonatas it already dominates the violin, there is frequently a greater aural imbalance between the instruments than would ideally be the case – despite microphone placement that favors the violin. There is also an extremely peculiar arrangement of the music on the six CDs. For a comprehensive set of discs such as this one, it would be most logical to present all the music chronologically (so listeners could hear how the composer develops over time and how the instrumental balance changes) – or to offer all the mature works in sequence and then the juvenilia and fragments as a kind of appendix. Neither of those approaches is used here – instead, there is a complete mishmash of earlier and later works on most of the discs, resulting in a listening experience that is frequently more jarring than informative. It would be understandable if this had been the way the live radio shows were programmed, with the discs duplicating the sequence that was broadcast, but that is not the case at all. The CDs mix material from different shows in ways that are thoroughly confusing. Disc 1, for example, has one sonata from a February performance, then two from May, then two from April; Disc 2 has two from January, then one from February, then two from May. And so it goes – to such an extent that the assemblers of this recording obviously became confused themselves, since Disc 5 inaccurately details the recording dates of 16 tracks even though the CD contains only 12. There is really no excuse for such a haphazard and disappointing arrangement of such worthy performances.

     But be that as it may, what matters most in this release is how well Smith and Pierce understand the music and how well they handle a number of its challenges, notably including the differing balances between and treatment of instruments in the various sonatas. They are also admirably sensitive to stylistic differentiation, such as the use of galant style in KV 301-306; the deliberately simplified approach of the very last sonata (KV 547, written for amateur performance and here included on a disc with works written when Mozart was 10 years old); and the emotive but not-quite-profound feeling of KV 304 (the only minor-key work among the sonatas, and the only instrumental work of any kind that Mozart wrote in E minor). The final CD in the set includes only the latest sonatas except for KV 547 – that is, KV 454, 481 and 526. The last of these, arguably the greatest of all these pieces, is offered here with admirable restraint and gentility that show it to be well-constructed and sensitively balanced, yet clearly part of a series dating back a remarkable 21 years: the earliest of these sonatas date to 1766, while KV 526 was written in 1787.

     Many fine violinists and pianists have made good cases for a selection of Mozart’s violin-and-piano sonatas, generally playing a dozen of them or fewer. Smith and Pierce offer all 26 completed works, plus a number of fragments or pieces completed by Maximilian Stadler after Mozart’s death. It is certainly fair to deem this recording “complete,” although it is worth pointing out that when it comes to Mozart’s works for these instruments, the matter is a touch complicated: for example, Smith and Pierce do not play the six early sonatas KV 10-15, because they are written for piano and violin but include an ad libitum cello part as well. Does that make them early trios or early entries in this series? Matters are not entirely straightforward in Mozart’s violin-and-piano works, or in his violin works as a whole. But certainly Smith and Pierce are successful here in playing the sonatas with involvement and joy, allowing them to bring forth the listening pleasure that Mozart tries to convey in his music for instruments of all sorts, very definitely including the violin.

(++++) SMALL GROUPS, LARGE EXPRESSIVENESS

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Verdi: The Four Seasons—Ballet Music from “Les Vêpres siciliennes.” Marco Fiorini, violin; I Musici. Decca. $14.99.

Carlo Monza: String Quartets. Members of Europa Galante (Fabio Biondi and Andrea Rognoni, violins; Stefano Marcocchi, viola; Alessandro Andriani, cello). Naïve. $16.99.

     Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is so overwhelmingly popular today – arguably the best-known piece in classical music for many people – that it is hard to imagine just how neglected it was for two centuries: The Four Seasons was first recorded in 1942, which was 201 years after Vivaldi’s death. And The Four Seasons is so familiar now that its groundbreaking elements are taken for granted and do not seem exceptional at all. But they were: the extent of tone painting, the determination to create very specific pictures in music (using poems appended to the score and apparently written by the composer himself), and the demands of the string writing (especially for the soloist), were all quite new in Vivaldi’s time. The Four Seasons opened floodgates of expressiveness that are not fully acknowledged only because what initially came through was just a trickle: it would not be until many years after Vivaldi’s death that his innovations in The Four Seasons were fully accepted and expanded. That said, the innumerable recordings of these first four concertos in the 12-work sequence called Il Cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione make it very difficult nowadays to justify additional recordings of The Four Seasons. Yet the new Decca release featuring I Musici nevertheless manages to be very special. It is a 70^th-anniversary performance for the ensemble – not for these specific members, of course, but for I Musici as a group. The initial 1952 recording was enormously popular, drawing considerable attention to music and performers alike. And even though the current dozen members of I Musici are new, a connection with the original ensemble remains, since solo violinist Marco Fiorini is the son of one of the original I Musici violinists, Montserrat Cervera. But of course none of this would matter to listeners if the performance were less than exemplary, “exemplary” being the basic expectation of The Four Seasons now that the music is thrice-familiar. The good news is that the performance is excellent, finely balanced, sensitive to period style, filled with nuance, and beautifully paced. It is not especially innovative – it would have been interesting, for instance, to have someone read the original poems, as was done in a groundbreaking Max Goberman performance on LP decades ago – but it certainly belongs in the top tier of recent recordings. And in one way it is highly unusual: instead of being paired with now-typical choices for filling out a disc (Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas has become a recent favorite), the Vivaldi is here offered along with ballet music, also called The Four Seasons, from Verdi’s 1855 melodrama, Les Vêpres siciliennes. This is not the original full-orchestra scoring, of course: it is an arrangement for string orchestra and piano by Luigi Pecchia, who performs the piano part. Verdi used a different sequence from the one Vivaldi chose – winter, spring, summer, autumn – and of course created a set of dances rather than four works in concerto form. The juxtaposition of the Vivaldi and Verdi pieces proves to be as pleasant as it is unusual, offering the chance to hear very different interpretations of seasonal changes, written in very different compositional eras, but performed throughout with notable panache by an ensemble that retains a sense of its own history while also fully acknowledging the place of Vivaldi and other composers in their own times.

     Vivaldi’s successful tone painting ties to some extent to his skill as a composer of opera, for which he still tends to be under-appreciated. He is not, however, as under-appreciated as a later Italian composer, Carlo Monza, who was born in 1735, six years before Vivaldi’s death, and lived until 1801. Monza wrote 20 operas, half with libretti by Metastasio, and was very well-thought-of in his time; but like so many lesser lights of the Classical era, he fell rapidly into obscurity and never quite emerged from it. Until now, that is: Fabio Biondi and three other top players from Biondi’s Europa Galante period-instrument ensemble have made world première recordings for Naïve of six chamber works by Monza – quartets that are as operatic as they come. All have titles, one of which is actually Opera in Musica, indicating that Monza knew exactly what he wanted to do in creating works that were intended to be very popular (it is easy to forget that at this time opera was mass entertainment, not something rarefied, limited and very expensive to attend). There is nothing profound in these Monza quartets, but there is a great deal that is highly attractive, and there are more than a few surprising twists and turns in the music. Emotions tend to be writ large and steeped in melodrama, with repeated dips into sections marked recitativo (two in Opera in Musica) and the frequent use, within movements that are invariably short, of contrasting slow and fast sections. The most operatic of the six works is called Gli Amanti Rivali (“Rival Lovers”) and essentially compresses a typical operatic plot into five movements lasting a total of only nine minutes. Each movement has a title, ranging from Si sfidano (“The Challenge”) to the inevitable Il duello (“The Duel”) and a largo when, alas, L’amante favorito muore (“The Favored Lover Dies”). One other quartet here, a three-movement, eight-minute one, has titles for each movement. It is La Fucina di Vulcano, “Vulcan’s Forge,” which portrays Vulcan’s jealousy of his wife, Venus; the way she soothes him; and their journey to Olympus. Then there is Il Giuocatore, “The Gambler,” in which the title character bemoans his losses and at the end is left ravveduto (“repentant”). The only minor-key work among these six is really no darker than the others. It is called Divertimento Notturno and has only tempo indications for its four movements, all of which are crepuscular rather than truly nocturnal. And the work that listeners might expect to be most pictorial, La Caccia (“The Hunt”), is much less so than would be anticipated, focusing on hunters and shepherds rather than imitating horn calls or creating chase scenes along the lines of what Vivaldi did in L’autunno. Biondi and Andrea Rognoni are, respectively, first and second chairs among Europa Galante’s violins, with Stefano Marcocchi first-chair violist and Alessandro Andriani first-chair cellist. Any egos associated with priorities within the ensemble are entirely absent in this recording, however, as the four players perform with the finely honed individual and ensemble instincts of a quartet whose members are thoroughly familiar and comfortable with each other. These Monza quartets are curiosities rather than profound rediscoveries, but they are uniformly well-made, make their points clearly and quickly (the 25 movements on the CD last a total of just 60 minutes), and make up in entertainment value what they lack in emotional heft.