This latest coupling of the Quintet and Quartet reached me only an hour or two after that of Martha Argerich and friends (see below). So comparison between the two is inevitable. Both issues are, of course, much influenced by the pianist in the leading role. In the Quintet Menahem Pressler (of Beaux Arts fame) presents us with a more equable, less impressionable middle-aged Schumann. In close accord with the four Emerson players, it’s a well-balanced, sympathetically mellow performance of the more traditional kind – a reiteration of accepted truths, as it were, rather than a voyage of discovery. Here, it was the keener imaginative response and heightened vitality of Argerich and her colleagues that made me listen to the work as if with new ears (not forgetting the eerie undertones of the slow movement and one notable moment of disquiet before the finale’s victory is finally won). Moreover, this group’s vivid colour contrasts are enhanced by what sounds like a cleaner, less plummy acoustic than that of Pressler and the Emerson.
In the Quartet, however, I preferred the maturer, more considered approach of the latter team. They show more respect for the molto sentimento qualifying the first movement’s Allegro ma non troppo. Besides a more even balance of keyboard and strings in the Scherzo, they also achieve a greater unity in the movement as a whole by a more consistent tempo. The Andante cantabile is not dragged: its main, heartfelt love-song has a riper and more purposeful flow. And their finale, not rushed off its feet, sounds much more finished.
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