Left Field Chamber Music

An excellent budget release of Russian chamber music by an English ensemble calling itself Capricorn. The recording is from 1984 and Capricorn seem to have long ceased to function as a performing entity, although I recognise some of the individual names of the players. The two works featured are Grand Sextet in E flat major by Glinka and Quintet in B flat major by Rimsky-Korsakov. Neither work strikes me as having a particularly Russian feel, or not at least what we have come to think of as Russian. They were composed over forty years apart with the Glinka being the earlier. It is more from the mainstream European tradition with the occasional gypsy touch. Certainly enjoyable chamber music for piano, string quartet and double bass. The Rimsky-Korsakov quintet is more interesting to me, a work for the unusual lineup of piano, flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon. the opening allegro con brio sounds for all the world to me like the latin jazz of early Chick Corea and Return to Forever, although Rimsky thought it to be in the classic style of Beethoven. The flute drives this movement while the slightly more Russian sounding modal style of the subsequent andante is a feature led by the clarinet. A hopping bassoon accompaniment goes on throughout the closing movement in which each of the other four instruments enjoys a short cadenza. An unexpected little gem of a disk.