In 1893, with his amazing Chansons grises already the toast of the salons, Hahn admitted he had no affinity with instrumental music, finding inspiration only in the matching of words and music. Nearly half-a-century later, in the early days of the Second World War, he had conquered his reluctance to the extent of writing two string quartets within months of each other.
By and large, the movements start well, but Hahn finds it harder to control things after that. The emotional connections between first and second theme-groups are not always clear or convincing and when, for example, he includes a passage of fugato (beautifully put together, as one would expect from a one-time Paris Conservatoire pupil) in the first movement of the Second Quartet, its purpose is not apparent and the climb down from it unpersuasive. But there isn't an ugly note or clumsy chord anywhere, and certainly I wished that the Provencal tune in the First Quartet had been extended beyond its meagre two minutes.
Between 1893 and 1939, Hahn expressed a preference for piano and strings over strings alone, and the Piano Quintet of 1921 is, as they say, quite another pair of sleeves. If the Faure influence observable in the quartets is even stronger here, and even if the work cannot equal the two other great 19th-century F minor piano quintets by Brahms and Franck, this is still a remarkably fine and powerful achievement, with a sumptuous slow movement that tells of Hahn's affection for Schumann. The performances are exemplary.'