BEETHOVEN. Serenade in D major for flute, violin and viola, Op. 25.

WEBER. Trio in G minor for flute, 'cello and piano, Op. 63. Melos Ensemble (Richard Adeney, flute; Emanuel Hurwitz, violin; Cecil Aronowitz, viola; Terence Weil, 'cello; Lamar Crowson, piano). L'Oiseau-Lyre 0 0L284: 0 S0L284 (12 in., 32s. 3d. plus 5s. 3d. P.T.).

Serenade in D major:

Baker, J. and L. Fuchs (2154) 0 AXTL1033

Beethoven intended his Flute Serenade to be small in scale and as prettily varied as the limits allowed, and the result can hardly be faulted. The music builds up through two charmingly trivial movements and a scherzo-type piece of mild intensity to a lovely lyrical set of variations that are the core of the work. Beethoven then unwinds through another scherzo to a garrulous Haydnesque finale, having said nothing very much in the most delightful way. The new recording is infinitely better in quality than its predecessor, and it is played with slightly more precision and glitter. Richard Adeney's phrasing is meticulously musical, the high viola solo in the variations is superbly done, and the tight clean ensemble of the group is especially admirable in the penultimate scherzo.

Weber's intentions in his Flute Trio are harder to gauge. Historically the work stands between Beethoven's Archduke Trio and the two piano trios of Schubert, but by comparison with such masterpieces it is short and unassuming, and, as so often with this composer, wildly inconsistent in style. Both scherzo and finale start impressively, the latter with a romantic theme of real imagination and beauty, yet both movements sink almost at once into inanities of the sort we might accept in a Taglioni ballet but which jar in chamber music. This duality is apparent in most of Weber's music, and his admirers learn to put up with his sudden changes of style, sustained perhaps by the thought that he wasn't the only chameleon among composers; Dussek, by whom Weber was much influenced in his instrumental music, also veered from the heights of original invention to the depths of um-cha-cha-cha nonsense. You may well find, with both these composers, that there is a strange fascination about their uneven quality; the good moments are so very good. Certainly the Weber Trio is worth one recording—it had not, I think, been in our catalogues before—and when it is played as beautifully as it is here it will certainly find admirers. R.F.