String Sextet
The playing of The Raphael Ensemble is wonderfully polished, and the account these young musicians deliver has lots of voltage behind it. The opening is extremely atmospheric--hauntingly stark and subdued--but the climactic pages that come later in the piece have rarely been as intensely presented. Hyperion's 1990 recording is outstanding, and the coupling, Korngold's excellent D-major sextet, receives a marvelous performance from the group that rediscovered it.--Ted Libbey