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Is there any sunnier music than that of Dvorak? A new Harmonia Mundi recording of his Opus 81 Piano Quintet, played by Frank Braley and Ensemble Explorations, offers ample proof, if any is needed.
The French pianist and his confreres reveal just this in the first few bars of the work's Allegro ma non troppo, delivered with a rapturous spontaneity, complete with the odd portamento sigh from the cellist leader, Roel Dieltiens. The slow movement is a wistful elegy, while the remainder of the quintet does its best to dance you off your feet.
Braley then turns from an 1874 Steinway to a dulcet-toned harmonium for the composer's Bagatelles. Written in the same year as Dvorak's phenomenally popular Slavonic Dances, these so-called "trifles" have the same immediacy and tunefulness.
Follow the strings as they crescendo and decrescendo up and down through the minuet of the second piece; pinch yourself during the last bagatelle if you start wondering whether this is a newly-discovered Slavonic dance.
With their infectious dance rhythms and the harmonium sounding not unlike an accordion, these pieces could well add some class to a Womad line-up.
The estimable Freiburger Barockorchester, one of the world's premier early music ensembles, brings us a second instalment of Mozart wind concertos, following on from last year's Concertante CD.
If you are accustomed to Mozart's four-horn concertos as a package, it is refreshing to have just the first and last, alongside their companions for oboe and bassoon.
Do not fear, the popular E flat first concerto is on the bill and Teunis van der Zwart, with natural horn, adds punch to its rollicking finale weaving around some clever scurries from the strings.
The oboe concerto features Katharina Arfken effortlessly lyrical in its Adagio and as zesty as can be in its bubbling finale.
Bassoonist Donna Agrell is an Alaskan and a veteran of many first-class European ensembles. She brings a jaunty nonchalance to her concerto's first movement and, while her swifter cadenzas are veritable seas of semiquavers, her special moment in the Andante manages an almost sax-like melancholy.
* Dvorak, Quintette Op 81 (Harmonia Mundi HMC 901880)
* Mozart, Wind Concertos (Harmonia Mundi HMC 901946, both through Ode Records)
