I love my Archibudeli Sextet recording.  It is so wonderful to hear all the
parts the way you would if you were actually playing them.  The Heifetz-etc
guys MURDERED just about everything on their chambermusic collection as far
as I am concerned.

I especially love the way you can hear MELODY coming from the two celli
in the Archibudelli CD.  In most other old-fashioned groups, all you can
hear is growling.  I adore their communication with each other, their great
intonation, their verve, their interpretations.  This is a MODERN approach
to Brahms.  It clears out the cobwebs.  It restores the original beauty.

Another Archibudelli CD that knocks me out is an arrangement for sextet
of the Mozart Symphonia Concertante.  Don't yell at me!  I'm a former
violinist AND violist and I've played the darned thing every way possible.
This arrangement is fun to play (MarGun publishing co) AND the Archibudelli
play it positively beautifully.

I'd hardly call L'archibudelli 'HIP' in their Brahms interpretation
or in their performance of the Mendelssohn Octet on cd.  I'd call them
"restorers" after the grotesque layering of the previous few generations.
Gone are those horrendous slides from position to position with no real
musical logic, gone are the slides meant to convey emotion but only
descriptive of mal de mer, gone are the wobblies, the rushing of tempo
to show off agility with no regard for the music itself.  And believe me,
I respect Heifetz as a violinist, but not as an icon of chamber music
playing.  And most of all, gone is the strange balance of the Heifetz et
al recordings, where some of Brahms' most wonderful inner-part writing
got swallowed up.

Mimi Ezust