DIVERTIMENTOS ADAGIOS FUGUES

The two duos are, of course, the real thing. These readings are the first on original instruments to have come my way; and very persuasive they are too. So often in recordings of these works the violinist, usually an international virtuoso, is much the more assertive player, hardly encouraging his partner to shake off the violist's natural reticence. Here, though, Vera Beths and Jurgen Kussmaul are beautifully matched, enabling one to savour fully Mozart's wonderful ingenuity in overcoming the medium's potential monotony of texture. Listen, for instance, to the duo's raillery in the variation finale of K424, or in the first movement development of K423, with its sequences of arpeggios tossed gleefully between the voices (from 3'41"). These are essentially gentle, intimate readings, with generally leisurely tempos that allow room for much delicately expressive detail; and I enjoyed the touches of rhythmic flexibility in movements like the opening of K423 and the Andante of K424. Occasionally, as in the finale of K424, flexibility can verge on waywardness; and to my ears the coda theme of K423's Adagio (from 2'41") sounds halting and selfconscious rather than expressively intense, as the players presumably intended. But these are rare misjudgements. Beths and Kussmaul form a true, selfless partnership and are recorded in an intimate, natural acoustic.

– Gramophone [4/1992]