Like the Beaux Arts Trio before them, the Borodin play the five trios written by Mozart between 1786–8, at the height of his powers, plus the early so-called Divertimento, K254, of 1776, which as Einstein has observed, is no mere divertimento in content though no true trio in scoring. The recording was made in The Maltings at Snape, allowing these artists the warm, full-bodied resonance they seem to like, without loss of clarity or perspective (as is sometimes the case in churches). If your ear is often drawn to the keyboard, the responsibility for that, I think, is Mozart's rather than the engineer's. Just once or twice I thought the cellist unduly modest when reinforcing the bass-line. But few opportunities for genuine conversation a trois are missed or mis-balanced.
I'm sure it won't be long before the Beaux Arts, as we know the team today, will decide to re-record these trios for CD. The LP version listed above was made way back in 1967 (with Daniel Guilet as violinist, not Isidore Cohen), and refreshingly crystalline as it is it lacks the bloom of the new Chandos CD—not least in the violin's upper reaches. As we well know in other contexts, the reconstituted Beaux Arts have had many second thoughts about tempo in recent years. And I suspect that if/when they do return to these trios, the same will happen again. But the vital musical difference between their old approach to Mozart and that of the Borodin stems from speed. So often the Borodin prefer a more leisurely gait—mostly in allegros, but once or twice in slow movements too. This results in a slightly older, more serious-sounding Mozart—a Tamino, as it were, rather than the carefree Papageno so often presented by the old Beaux Arts.
In so far as faster flanking movements are concerned, the biggest point of departure is the finale of the G major Trio, K564, marked Allegretto. While from the Beaux Arts it dances (at a dotted crotchet = 80), from the Borodin (whose dotted crotchet = 63) it lasts almost one and three quarter minutes longer and to me, at any rate, seems slightly to outstay its welcome. Of the slow movements the biggest difference comes in the Andante grazioso of the E major Trio, K542, a work whose unusual (for Mozart) choice of key elicited some of the richest music of the whole set. Here, I infinitely prefer the grazioso lilt brought by the Beaux Arts to their 4'38'' as opposed to the Borodin's more consciously searching 5'51''. To make my point I've obviously picked out the two most striking examples. Albeit on the same lines, other differences are less extreme—and just as often in the Borodin's favour, as, for instance, in the imposing opening movement of the C major Trio, K548, and still more, the first movement of the mellow B flat Trio, K502, where the Beaux Arts sound just a little too perky.
In sum, then, a Germanic Tamino or a Viennese Papageno. Both in their different ways are excellent. Chacun a son gout!R1 '8802058'