For some people, Faure's name is synonymous with Gallic refinement, but also—certainly if we compare him with Berlioz or Messiaen—perhaps a certain bloodlessness. However, those who think him incapable of real vigour should get to know his C minor Quartet, an earlyish work whose composition coincided with a stormy love affair that ended in separation. Accordingly, it throbs with feeling and the surging opening to the first movement sets the tone. This performance brings out that quality, but also recognizes the elements of tenderness and delicacy in the score, so that it makes for pleasing listening.
The Los Angeles Piano Quartet are new to me. but clearly are an expert ensemble in tune with the ebb and flow of the music, although in places they could perhaps go still further in refinement of phrasing to give us all that Faure offers. My only other criticism is that Pickwick's recording is a little congested and lacking in impact: the scherzo of the G minor Quartet, for example, should leap out of one's speakers more than it does here, although the performance is idiomatic.
This work, written a few years later, has no special personal connotations but is hardly less dramatic, and Faure's pupil Florent Schmitt declared that the opening melody alone ''would have ensured immortality to the composer''. Indeed, these two works, beautifully written for the four instruments, deserve a place in the collection of anyone who appreciates musical craftsmanship allied to civilized expression of feeling. This is an attractive disc, although my first choice would still go to the famous Gramophone Award-winning version of these works by Domus for still subtler playing and recording.'