Quatuor Cambini-Paris are a period-instrument group formed eight years ago by musicians from Les Talens Lyriques, L’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Le Cercle de l’Harmonie. They have already recorded quartets by Jadin, David and Gouvy, but this set of the six quartets, which Mozart published in 1785 with a dedication to Haydn, is their first foray on disc into the mainstream quartet repertoire. I wish I had enjoyed it more. There’s much to admire in the playing, and the sound from their gut strings, light 18th-century bows and very strictly rationed use of vibrato is often superbly transparent and expressive – the famous introduction to the C Major “Dissonance” Quartet K465, with its fourths and clashing semitones, seems even more disconcerting when there is no vibrato blurring the harmonic edges, for instance. But the Cambini do tend to over-interpret things, introducing too many little sforzandos and diminuendos, and tapering phrases off self-consciously, so that the natural flow is constantly disrupted. A pity, because their playing is impressive.
