Fibich’s chamber music is not usually rated as highly by his compatriots as are his operas or orchestral music, or even the many piano pieces that began life as impressions of his beloved Anezka Schulzova. As far as the Piano Quartet is concerned, this may well be to do with the fact that he had not then, in 1874 at the age of 23, grown away from the German training he received at the Leipzig Conservatoire. Yet the piece is well worth hearing. It has the melodic richness that characterizes him, together with a skill in presenting his ideas that may owe much to Brahms and Schumann, in particular, but that has a warmth and fluency all his own.
However, the Quintet is the more original work, not least in its scoring for violin, clarinet, horn, cello and piano. Fibich makes this sound so easy and natural as to awake surprise that it has not been more often attempted; but clearly the choice of contrasted and blending wind and string sonorities around the keyboard, and the manner in which the music is conceived, has a particular relevance. The booklet-note quotes one of Fibich’s major modern biographers, Jaroslav Jiranek, as saying that the four movements portray the composer, Anezka, their relationship (scherzo variations that are lively as well as tender and passionate) and a hymn of love. To this could be added that they actually make use of some of the material in the earlier Anezka piano pieces. It is a very attractive work, sympathetically played here, without affectation but with much devotion, and the recording makes the most of the timbres.'