Label Hyperion

The circumstances surrounding the composition and first performance of the Suite in B flat major, Op 4, were to prove enormously significant for Strauss’s career. Von Bülow decided to give the premiere of the new work in Munich in the winter of 1884 during an orchestral tour. Furthermore, since the players had already familiarized themselves with the music in Meiningen that autumn, he thought it would be appropriate if the composer himself conducted this performance according to his own interpretation.

The RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, with the support of Garth Knox (viola) and Piers Lane (piano), continue their excellent survey of Stanford’s neglected chamber works with this recording of his String Quintet No 1 and Piano Quintet. Growing up in his native Dublin in the 1850s and ’60s, Stanford was no stranger to high-quality chamber music, even if visits to Ireland’s capital by pre-eminent executants of the genre were sporadic.

No, not another Mozart piano concerto disc! No indeed, for this pioneering recording gives us intimate, almost domestic versions of three of the composer’s masterpieces, versions that have scarcely been played, let alone set to disc, in the modern concert era. Moreover they give us the opportunity to hear Susan Tomes show her mettle in strong light as concerto soloist—and bring to a wider repertoire the distinct communicative magic that has made her one of the foremost chamber pianists of today.