Piano Quintets

[ahinton]

Listening to ......

Charles Wuorinen - Piano Quintet
Contemporary Music Group, Naxos.

This is a powerful Second Viennese School chamber composition that shamelessly flaunts its Webern influences.

In terms of 'modern' music, this piece is as important to me as Frank Bridge's much earlier Piano Trio #2.

That trio (actually his third piano trio but the first one seems to be lost) is one of the finest things that Bridge ever wrote, methinks; there's a performance on YT from almost half a century ago by Britten, Menuhin and Gendron at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCB1Vo4AwiY , in which Britten's formidable pianistic gifts are well in evidence.

[LMcD]

That trio (actually his third piano trio but the first one seems to be lost) is one of the finest things that Bridge ever wrote, methinks; there's a performance on YT from almost half a century ago by Britten, Menuhin and Gendron at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCB1Vo4AwiY , in which Britten's formidable pianistic gifts are well in evidence.

Many thanks for this link. I shall enjoy listening to it and comparing it with my Helios CD recording by the Dartington Piano Trio.

[gurnemanz]

Got to know the Sibelius P Quintet via BIS Essential Sibelius box. A student work which the composer later rejected as rubbish. You can hear Brahms, Franck, Chausson, Liszt etc in there - a bit of a melange (I get some jolly skipping Percy Grainger in the Andante). Worth 40 minutes of anyone's life in my view.

[BBMmk2]

Got to know the Sibelius P Quintet via BIS Essential Sibelius box. A student work which the composer later rejected as rubbish. You can hear Brahms, Franck, Chausson, Liszt etc in there - a bit of a melange (I get some jolly skipping Percy Grainger in the Andante). Worth 40 minutes of anyone's life in my view.

Certainly worth investigating here?

[Dave2002]

Anyone noticed - or even tried - this one - https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/cl...piano-quintets Earl Wild - orchestral arrangement of Schumann and Dohnanyi quintets.

I'm intrigued, but perhaps not to the extent of £12 or so.

I bought this in the end. The Schumann is very good. As you might expect if you read the details the orchestra "American String Orchestra" is strings only, so no really odd orchestration, though that might have been interesting. I enjoy the Schumann performance a lot - though I haven't really figured out why it's so different from a quartet version - a good string quartet should be able to give a rendition with similar (or greater) emotional impact.

And why not anyway? The piano is fairly obviously a modern instrument with all the power that brings, so very different from the HIPP versions with fortepianos discussed earlier - which I would also strongly recommend. I would recommend this CD very highly despite its "non-authentic" credentials.

I am less happy about the Dohnanyi work though, some of the mood of the piece seems to have gone with the orchestrated version - can't put my finger on it - must listen more. Maybe I'll change my mind in a while.

PS: Bought as used for £6.24 via am.uk shipped from GA USA.