Ludwig Thuille's music is what we call today "forgotten but rediscovered." It's hard to imagine that this late-Romantic German composer would have been recorded in the 1980s or 1990s. Those days, when everyone, including smaller labels, was recording mainstream repertoire unceasingly, have long gone since. Here we are, on the brink of the second decade of the 20th century; everything that hasn't been recorded yet is now being "rediscovered"--a very easy commercial excuse for record companies who suffer from fallbacks in their selling numbers. After some research on the Internet, I was quite amazed to see just how many labels had already recorded this music (cpo, Naxos, and ASV, to name just a few).  Thuille was a contemporary and personal friend of Richard Strauss. The fact that it took him two years to complete his Sextet probably means he saw the work as his magnum opus. Unfortunately for him, history didn't agree with that. His music is not what I would call worthless, but it lacks the indispensable features a composition needs--harmonic logic, tension, and construction are just the most important ones. Most of Thuille's compositions suffer from the lack of these ingredients. On top of that, they usually seem endlessly long, which makes it a struggle just to hear them through.  The performances themselves are not bad, as such. Both the Chantily Quintet and the Gigli String Quartet play tidily, and are well balanced and involved. Gianluca Luisi's contributions at the piano in both works are intelligent and involved. It must be said that the recording engineers did a great job as well. The sound is full-bodied, clear, and focused. The problem lies, as I mentioned before, in the music itself. Musicians are faced with such a labyrinth of harmonic changes, unclear phrasing, and tensionless melodies that it becomes impossible for even the finest musicians to find a way out.  In the end, this release may be interesting for completists or those who want something different on their shelves. With this kind of release, there's always a chance to find a forgotten gem, but let's remember that history already did a lot of natural selection. --Fanfare, James H. North, Jan-Feb 2010