Ensemble Dialoghi MOZART | BEETHOVEN Quintets for Piano and Winds

Authenticity: conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features. Historically Informed Performance: an approach to the performance of classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in which a work was originally conceived. These two definitions, without reservations, certainly go hand in hand like whipped cream on pumpkin pie, with the Ensemble Dialoghi, a chamber music group made up of Spanish, Italian, and Canadian musicians. Except for the bassoon which itself dates from 1805, all the other instruments were crafted during the last ten years, but are built after period instruments from the late 18th century.

Attention - Do not adjust your system. On the contrary, it's your inner musical ear that requires adjusting and fine tuning on first listen. It took me a minute or two to "get" that the sound, and music, I was hearing were not only right, but accurately and expressively musical. I immediately pulled out, for comparison, my copy of the 1984 Sony recording featuring Murray Perahia on piano with members of the English Chamber Orchestra, a recording that up until now I considered to be exemplary. Lifeless, dull and uninvolved are my impressions of it now. What a sharp contrast between the two; not only sonically but also interpretatively. You can tell by the make-up and attire that the members of Ensemble Dialoghi are sporting on the CD cover and on their website, that they consider themselves to be more like buskers, minstrels or saltimbanques rather than just simply musicians. Their motto is "chamber music as a way of communicating", and they certainly go out of their way to project the composer's spirit, and inherent joy and beauty within the music, to the audience, as if they were staging a dramatic presentation.

If Wolfgang and Ludwig were still alive today they would most likely exclaim: "Wow, this sounds just like the good ol' days!" (Jean-Yves Duperron)