MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Strauss, (R.): Capriccio Sextet (with Bruckner - String Quintet in F major)

'This is quite glorious... one senses right from the opening of Bruckner's Quintet - surely one of the finest quintets ever written, for any combination - an intensity that matches its ambitious structure... it's obvious from the first bars of the achingly beautiful Prelude... that this is going to be an exceptional performance' (CDReview)

'Strongly recommended' (Hi Fi News)

'Easily takes first place within the exiguous competition' (Fanfare, USA)

'Un registro soberbio' (CD Compact, Spain)

"The substitute intermezzo (with the same trio) is appended here, but the original second movement is, of course, played in this superb account. As a preamble of a stylistically opposite kind - a Bruckner antidote - the ensemble offers the suavely concise string-sextet prelude to Strauss's opera Capriccio."
(Sunday Times)

The Raphael Ensemble was formed in 1982 with the aim of performing masterpieces of the quintet and sextet repertoire. Their debut recording of Brahms' Sextets for Hyperion Records was selected for BBC Radio 3's Critics' Choice of 1989 and Hi-Fi News and Record Review's Best Recordings of 1989. Their subsequent recordings include Dvorak's Quintet and Sextet; Korngold/Schoenberg Sextets; Martinu/Schulhoff Sextets, Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, Bruckner's Quintet, Schubert's Quintet Coupled with his String Trio in B-flat) and Brahms' two Quintets.
The Raphael Ensemble has given many BBC broadcasts particularly of many more unusual and neglected masterpieces. They have played at the Bath, Warwick and Edinburgh International Festivals and have given many performances at The Wigmore Hall and at London's South Bank Centre. In addition to extensive tours within the U.K., they have performed as featured artists in festivals and major series in France, Norway, Germany, Spain, Brussels, Greece and Malaysia and have recently triumphed with a major tour of venues across the North America.

1996 sees the release of the group's recording of the Brahms String Quintets; a residency at St. George's, Brandon Hill; concerts in the United Kingdom and abroad, further recordings Hyperion, a Promenade Concert and the commission of a new work.