In his excellent commentary for this CD, David Brown points-out a biographical element which, though such things can sometimes be exaggerated, is pretty clearly demonstrated by the pairing of these pieces. Tchaikovsky made a pretty solid start in quartet-writing early in his career, but then, after three such excusions into that genre, left it, and almost all chamber music, for the larger forms of symphony and opera because of the increasing tumult of his life, and what he perceived (right or wrong) as the limitations lof the smaller forms to allow for his self-expression. Interesting theory. The sextet "SOUVENIR DE FLORENCE" gives some support to this, if only in the expanded instrumental resources Tchaikovsky chose to employ in this piece, whose title suggests something perhaps lighter than it really turns-out to be. Of-course, one wonders whether the composer's memories of that magical city were coloured by sexual adventures there. Was Florence then, as it has been recurrently over centuries, a lodestone for persons of free-form sexuality? Regardless, the recorded performance here shows these pieces to great advantage. Incidentally, how sad it is that the entire significant repertory for string sextet can be performed within four hours (Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, Richard Strauss -- and JS Bach, if you stretch thing a little for the Sixth Brandenburg). ( )