Suk Piano Quartet; Piano Quintet
Endearing repertoire, surveyed with copious skill and affection
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Josef Suk
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 8/2004
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 73
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDA67448
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Piano Quartet |
Josef Suk, Composer
Josef Suk, Composer Nash Ensemble |
| Piano Quintet |
Josef Suk, Composer
Josef Suk, Composer Nash Ensemble |
| (4) Pieces |
Josef Suk, Composer
Josef Suk, Composer Nash Ensemble |
Author: Andrew Achenbach
Completed around 1891, Josef Suk’s youthful Piano Quartet bears an inscription to his teacher and future father-in-law Dvoák, and it’s not hard to detect a strong stylistic kinship between the two. Suk’s Op 1 displays a deft touch and keen confidence that go hand in hand with a tumbling, full-throated lyricism. It’s a potent brew – and nowhere more intoxicating than in the rapt central portion of the Adagio slow movement, a passage which (as annotator Jan Smaczny observes) already seems to look forward to the glorious Fairy Tale for orchestra from 1900.
Brahms was the dedicatee of the Piano Quintet, another comparatively early effort written in 1893 but not published until 1915. This is an altogether more ambitious, harmonically adventurous beast, cast in four movements as opposed to the Piano Quartet’s three. Perhaps the Allegro fuoco finale is a little too garrulous to be entirely convincing, but there’s plenty of red-blooded, strongly appealing invention throughout.
Sandwiched between these two main offerings come the Four Pieces for violin and piano of 1900. An agreeably varied, hummable sequence they comprise, too, culminating in an irresistibly playful perpetuum mobile that never fails to lift the spirits.
Lovely fare, then, performed with great polish and heartwarming dedication by The Nash Ensemble, and all cleanly captured by the microphones. This disc will surely provide much pleasure.
Brahms was the dedicatee of the Piano Quintet, another comparatively early effort written in 1893 but not published until 1915. This is an altogether more ambitious, harmonically adventurous beast, cast in four movements as opposed to the Piano Quartet’s three. Perhaps the Allegro fuoco finale is a little too garrulous to be entirely convincing, but there’s plenty of red-blooded, strongly appealing invention throughout.
Sandwiched between these two main offerings come the Four Pieces for violin and piano of 1900. An agreeably varied, hummable sequence they comprise, too, culminating in an irresistibly playful perpetuum mobile that never fails to lift the spirits.
Lovely fare, then, performed with great polish and heartwarming dedication by The Nash Ensemble, and all cleanly captured by the microphones. This disc will surely provide much pleasure.
Suk Piano Quartet; Piano Quintet
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