Schubert Piano Quintet The Trout Melos

Russian born composer Paul Juon is relatively unknown. A contemporary critic has termed this late-romantic composer the missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Following the release of his Piano Quartets (7772782), cpo now present his Piano Quintet and Sextet. The two works recorded here are obliged to Brahms and Chopin and of course to the Russian tradition. They are distinguished by bold harmonies and unusual or irregular rhythms.

This is a profound, moving, beautifully structured performance. Richter plays with passionate intensity and serene sensitivity. He creates an exquisite balance between the pathos and the longing geniality within the sonatas. I doubt I will ever want another recording of these sonatas. Richter's rendition brilliant. It's as though Schubert wrote these with Richter in mind!

There are times when you honestly believe that there is no need to buy another pianist except Richter, nowhere more so than in Schubert. This live Feb. 24, 1979 concert from Tokyo finds him in supreme form. His playing is highly personal, as always, and not everyone will like the ruogh, crashing fortissimos in the opening movement of D. 784. That quibble aside–and the somewhat thin, hard piano sound, which is no pleasure–every bar draws rapt attention. I can only express my delight in finding two of Richter's best live performances, since the ebullient D. 664 is just as fine as the haunted D. 784.

Almost unknown for years because of the general focus on Louis Vierne as an organ composer, the Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 42, of this student of Franck and Widor has been unearthed and has received at least a couple of recordings. The work is superb. For those wondering, it does resemble Vierne's organ music. It is highly chromatic, densely contrapuntal, and often built around lines that are introduced with each instrument playing a note of a large chord in sequence for a very organ-like effect. Beyond this is a highly personal quality that marries an intimacy akin to that of Janácek's chamber music to the monumental style Vierne inherited.

The late G major sonata followed such landmarks as the ‘Great’ C major symphony and Schubert’s last string quartet, and explores similarly expansive terrain; the A major is an earlier, genial work. These frame the brief D769a fragment, which adds to the uniqueness of Stephen Hough’s marvellous recital.

Here’s an unexpected and most welcome entry in Decca’s Legendary Performances series. Clifford Curzon was a card-carrying perfectionist who broached recording with the enthusiasm of a man on his way to the gallows. Yet time has been good to his small discography. You won’t find heartstopping dynamic surges in Curzon’s 1954 Schumann C Major Fantasie, but you’ll hear beautifully proportioned lines that never fail to sing, plus sturdy mono engineering that does full justice to Curzon’s ravishing palette of color and nuance. The pianist’s focused delicacy throughout Kinderszenen contrasts to Gieseking’s cool watercolors and Horowitz’s garish, broad brushstrokes, among notable mono versions.

Performer, composer and teacher, Enrique Granados stood with de Falla and Albéniz as the most outstanding Spanish musician of his time. Among his dozen or so chamber works the Piano Trio and Piano Quintet, both from 1894, exemplify Granados’s highly expressive, Neo-romantic style, his piano writing revealing the hand of a virtuoso. Amiable touches of dance and salon music, hints of Moorish, gypsy and folkloric elements, co-exist in these beautiful, refined pieces. The famous Intermezzo from his opera Goyescas, an Aragonese jota, is heard here in Gaspar Cassadó’s popular arrangement.

A nod toward historical authenticity is de rigueur in many kinds of performances, but performances of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821, on the instrument for which it was written are rare indeed. The performer who wants to undertake one faces several obstacles. Few examples of the arpeggione exist; the instrument was invented in Vienna in 1823 but quickly fell out of fashion. That might have been because, with six strings (it is something like a bowed guitar), it is quite difficult to play, and Schubert's sonata is the only major work written for it. Yet the instrument has a truly lovely voice, gentle and songful in its upper register where a cellist really has to bear down. Cellist Alexander Rudin has mastered its intricacies here, and the work emerges as quite idiomatically written for its instrument, not at all as a novelty.

Like Smetana’s two quartets and his Piano Trio, strongly programmatic elements underpin both these chamber works, though Fibich cuts a far less original musical mind. Still, the Quintet, which matches piano, wind and strings in a beautifully transparent texture, is blessed with a lyrical melodious opening movement and a charming Scherzo. It receives a sympathetic performance from this excellent ensemble.