The five works on this disc have three things in common. First, they're scored for the relatively unusual combination of wind quintet and piano. Second, they're played by the cracker-jack
Reykjavik Wind Quintet and ace pianist
Vovka Ashkenazy, son of the famous pianist-conductor
Vladimir Ashkenazy. And third, they're all drop-dead hilarious. Try the last movement of
Rimsky-Korsakov's quintet with its lopsided tunes and gawky rhythms, or the opening movement of
Saint-Saëns' Caprice sur des airs danois et russes with its tongue-in-cheek melodies and waggish harmonies, or any of the three movements of Françaix's L'Heure du berger with its drunken glissandos and rude sforzandos, or even dour old Vincent d'Indy's Sarabande et Minuet: is that the sound of a smile one hears in the Sarabande and perhaps even a smirk in the Minuet? While certainly not for serious listening, this disc is so brilliantly played and so thoroughly entertaining that only the stoniest of faces and the hardest of hearts could resist it. With sound so real you can practically taste it, this disc is irresistible.