Classics Today 10/10; BBC Music Magazine 5 stars; Classica-Répertoire 10. These two quartets show Cherubini refining a personal synthesis of Germanic craft and Italian lyric instinct. No. 5 in F opens with a poised slow introduction before an Allegro whose long-breathed subject spins contrary-motion arabesques; dynamic juxtapositions, syncopated unisons and emphatic closing chords nod frankly to Beethoven, yet the voice remains unmistakably Cherubini’s. The Scherzo carries that tensile energy forward, while the trio lightens the air as the first violin “birds” above pizzicato resonance; the finale alternates terse chordal calls with deft little fugues, maintaining a fresh, lively current to the end. No. 6 in A minor turns inward: an enigmatic first idea, firmly set in common time, casts a sombre hue that the teasing second subject only briefly disperses. An Andantino grazioso recalls Figaro-like gait with quicksilver modal shifts and a concluding cadenza; the Scherzo plays with hemiola and sharpened accents; and the rondo—doloroso e appassionato—interrupts itself to glance back at earlier movements before a clean, unsentimental surge to the close. Together they reveal a late master conversant with tradition yet quietly, rigorously himself.