Schubert Piano Quintet The Trout Melos

This new double-album by pianist Lars Vogt, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff includes some of Franz Schubert’s (1797–1828) greatest works of chamber music, including his Piano Trios and the Arpeggione Sonata, in breath-taking interpretations. Franz Schubert wrote his two numbered Piano Trios, as well as the Notturno for piano trio, during the very last months in his life, in 1827 and 1828. Like Beethoven, Schubert’s final works in chamber music are masterpieces of great emotional depth. The famous Arpeggione Sonata (1824) and Rondo for violin and piano (1826) were written slightly earlier, but can also be counted among Schubert’s late works.

Schubert - Piano Sonatas D.958,959,960 - Brendel (dvd)
Classical | DVD | NTSC 4:3 | covers | DVD´s FULL No compression | 4.1 Gb (DVD5)
Audio: PCM Stereo | 105m | Relesase: 2006 | Label: Philips

The recording is similarly refined, intimate enough but never in-your-face, and delicately resonant, adding lustre to the gentle glow Brendel places around Schubert's sorrowful songs. And don't forget that analogy with Winterreise: maybe Brendel's Schubert Sonatas work so well because he hears the voices, and as a pianist he's simply one of the best singers. ..

Acclaimed pianist Piers Lane and his fellow Australians, the Goldner String Quartet, reprise their highly successful partnership in these world-premiere recordings of the two String Quartets and Piano Quintet of Irish composer Hamilton Harty. Born in County Down, Harty (1879–1941) was a remarkable, self-taught musician who wrote in a lyrical Romantic idiom, as evidenced in these appealing works, while incorporating a modal astringency and folk-music charm that are reminiscent of Percy Grainger. In particular, the winding, pentatonic melody of the Lento of the Piano Quintet—a lusciously big-boned work worthy of Tchaikovsky—and the delightful 9/8 ‘hop jig’ of the first movement of String Quartet No 2 seem like settings of folk-melodies that have echoed for centuries around the green hills of Ireland. Intriguingly, however, they are entirely Harty’s own invention.

The music of Josef Suk, pupil of Dvorák and married to the elder composer’s daughter, is only now beginning to be recognized for its true worth. Presented here are three relatively early works, brimming with youthful enthusiasm but already showing considerable individuality, a highly developed approach to structure, and, occasionally, a touch of the melancholy introspection which was to inform many of the composer’s later works. A talented violinist, Suk lends to his chamber compositions a true understanding of the genre, while his thoroughly ‘Czech’ musical upbringing ensures strong representation for the folk and dance influences to be found in the music of many of his contemporaries.

Listening to Murray Perahia's 2002 recordings of Schubert's last three piano sonatas, one is reminded all over again how great the works are, how dramatic and heroic the C minor is, how lyrical and passionate the A major is, and how morbid and sublime the B flat major is. Unfortunately, one is also reminded all over again of how limited an interpreter Perahia is, how he can play the notes of the C minor but miss their depths, how he can sing the melodies of the A major but miss their beauty, and how he can keep to the tempos of the B flat major but miss their transcendental profundity.