Nash Ensemble

With the vast majority of Beethoven's works being frequently performed as part of the modern canon, we can sometimes forget those few pieces that often lie dormant. This Hyperion album, featuring the Nash Ensemble, celebrates three such works. The program opens with the Op. 104 C minor String Quintet, which keen listeners will instantly recognize as a transcription of the Op. 1/3 Piano Trio. The quintet version came into being as a sort of "oneupsmanship" after an amateur composer submitted his own transcription. Beethoven, who accurately assessed that he could do better, rewrote it and published it as Op. 104. If you're not already familiar with the piano trio, you may never know that the string quintet began its life in a different genre. Beethoven's writing is highly idiomatic while preserving almost the entire original score of the trio. The Nash Ensemble's performance is equally refined and stunning, making it all the more curious why this piece is not performed more frequently.

Shostakovich's introspective Piano Quintet is one of the composer's supreme achievements. Perhaps it was the subtle nod to Baroque forms as well as the Beethoven-like use of fugue that earned this piece a permanent place in the chamber repertoire. The Nash Ensemble, led by Marcia Crayford and Elizabeth Clayton, shines especially in the playful and colorful Scherzo.

The four Mozart flute quartets make up a nicely tidy CD, and the Nash Ensemble's neat and pointed playing make it an enjoyable one too. Philippa Davies is a pleasure to listen to, clean and unusually even in tone, a tone which is round and full but not in the least watery; lively and rhythmic in her articulation. And the string players give firm, indeed sturdy support.

As a composer of sacred music, Bob Chilcott has found his own niche by writing accessible choral works that speak to contemporary sensibilities. As has been noted frequently, his Requiem evokes Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé, mostly through its gentle feeling and serene melodies, though without imitating their style or content. Rather, it has its own mix of somber harmonies and fluid, chantlike lines, and the expression of the work is a little cooler and darker. Chilcott's music admits occasional and mild dissonance, though the orientation is strongly modal and the harmonies always feel like a natural result of the counterpoint. Chilcott's Salisbury Motets, Downing Service, and three shorter pieces share the same modern Anglican style, which is approachable and easy to follow. The Wells Cathedral Choir, under the direction of Matthew Owens, sings with a pure tone and clear diction, and the sound of the recordings is quite resonant, thanks to the responsive acoustics of the Cathedral of St. Andrew.

The music of Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi took a dive in concert program frequency after his death in the U.S. in 1960, when the fashion was for Bartók or still more progressive composers. It has been making a comeback, however, and this satisfying release by Britain's venerable Nash Ensemble, largely specialists in contemporary music, should only help it along. Dohnányi was classified as a conservative, and indeed there is a strong Brahmsian streak in his music.

Not autumnal, not reflective, not reserved, and definitely not restrained, this coupling of Brahms' two string sextets may seem to some to be at best wrong-headed and at worst simply wrong. After all, isn't Brahms the composer for whom the adjective autumnal was coined and to whom the adjectives reflective, reserved, and restrained are reflexively applied? Yes, but that doesn't mean all of Brahms' music is autumnal: he was young once, too and the expansive and exuberant young Brahms is emotionally far from the reflective, reserved, and restrained composer of later years.

The three works on this album were all written by Max Bruch at the end of his life, after World War I, when he was more than 80 years old. They were not published until after his death in 1920, and then they were forgotten due to Nazi bans on Bruch's music because of his supposed Jewish ancestry, wartime manuscript loss, and the self-serving actions of modernist gatekeepers. In the world they depict, the Great War might as well never have happened, but perhaps that is part of the point.

A fascinating selection of pieces by one of the twentieth century’s most original and perplexing figures. Constant Lambert is perhaps better known today for his strident views on his contemporaries, but was also as a composer of delightful, anarchic music, influenced particularly by Stravinsky and Ravel. A distinguished line-up of performers presents these works in the clearest light. This recording is a must for anyone interested in twentieth-century music. Many of Lambert’s other works are also available on Hyperion.