Piano Quartet

Mendelssohn's three piano quartets were written in childhood. The second, the Piano Quartet in F minor, Opus 2, was written in 1823, a year after the first, and dedicated to his teacher Zelter. The strings start the first movement, before the piano adds its own more extended comment. It is the piano that introduces the A flat major second subject, based on the descending scale. The piano part gives an appearance of virtuosity, with complications of hand-crossing to impress an audience. The strings, violin, viola and then cello, lead back, as the central development comes to an end, to the recapitulation and final more rapid coda.

Gabriel Fauré’s musical language bridges a gap between the romanticism of the 19th century and the new worlds of music which appeared in the 20th, employing subtle harmonic changes and a gift for melody to combine innovation with an entirely personal idiom. His First Piano Quartet is filled with characteristic French colour and lyricism, and the Piano Trio in D minor is a late work whose musical language is familiar from his songs. Both the Pavane and the popular Sicilienne express nostalgia for earlier times, and the short Pièce has great simplicity and charm.

It’s almost hard to believe that Andrew Anderson hails from Australia, given how deeply rooted he seems to be in the European High-Romantic tradition. The first quartet in particular is profoundly reminiscent of the virtuoso chamber works of Dussek and Hummel, with a dash of Dvořák for good measure. And yet, its sound is decidedly modern. Not only is the work stunningly well-proportioned, it effortlessly adheres to the classical sonata form – not in a rigid, miniaturized way of imitation, but completely naturally, as if it could only exist in this way and no other.