A most moving performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet, recorded with outstanding fidelity in Birmingham's Adrian Boult Hall. The rapport between the excellent Coull Quartet and the pianist Allan Schiller can almost be felt. Schiller is less assertive than John Bingham in the Medici Quartet's Meridian recording and less poetic than Ogdon in the nearly 20-year-old performance recorded by EMI, but is more of a natural chamber-music player than either.
My only reservation is that the Coull and Medici recordings linger over the Adagio. I can understand the temptation to so so—its autumnal hues invite a leisurely approach—but both take two minutes longer than the Allegri and Ogdon who shape the whole work just that bit more convincingly. Elgar's melancholy is always more poignant when it is not too drawn-out.
The earlier recordings both offer more Elgar to fill out the playing-time. ASV have enterprisingly chosen another English piano quintet, composed by Frank Bridge in 1904–5 and revised in 1912 when the scherzo was incorporated into the slow movement to provide a contrasting quick central episode. It goes well with Elgar, making this a highly desirable disc. This is Bridge in his pre-1914 romantic style, Brahmsian I suppose, though I wouldn't make too much of that (so is Elgar in a way), but with detectable anticipations of his later, more astringent music. It is beautifully written and just as well played and recorded. Do hear it.'