Piano Quintet must hear

[John Hudock]

I've just re-listened to the two Thuille quintets and I must say they are absolutely exquisite works. The G Minor is a student work, but still quite lovely, but the E flat Major quintet is superb. Great drive, beautiful melodies throughout and incredibly lush.  Both are available in recordings with Oliver Triendl and the Vogler Quartet on CPO. There are other recordings on ASV and Naxos, but I don't have copies of them (although I was impressed enough with the CPO recording that I am now intrigued to hear the other perfomances). There is also a recording on a label called Champs Hill which includes a Piano Trio that I am unfamiliar with (and the Sextet which is also quite a lovely work)

[jerfilm]

The Fano Quintet mentioned some time ago is available from Amazon.com in Mp3 format coupled with the Quartet for a bargain $5.99.  I see some idiot wants $43 for the CD.......

[Glazier]

There are quite a few well-played PQs on You Tube.
How about the Vaughan Williams with dbass- great late rom stuff, very early(pre 1910), non pentatonic folksong style.

Korngold is worth one's time too.
Any more ideas?

[eschiss1]

I have trouble thinking of any must-hear quintets that haven't been mentioned. Discovered a performance of an enjoyable modern tonal quintet by someone named Jeff Manookian on IMSLP yesterday that's worth a listen (score and recording there). I also like Rozsa's (1928) and Pejacevic's (and a few others that are way off this forum's map like Schnittke's though I haven't heard that one often) but I suppose that's all for a more general thread The Shostakovich, lukewarm though I may be on it at times, is probably a must-hear though.

(And even as big a fan of Reger as I am, and even knowing how important a place in his output as his op.64 merits at least as a turning point, I still haven't heard either of -his- quintets yet...)
Eric

[Kriton]

Hey, do you want me to take my cricket/baseball bat home?

This thread is strictly  p with v v va vc.

All Trout quintet combo people, please go and start your own thread!

How about the Vaughan Williams with dbass- great late rom stuff, very early(pre 1910), non pentatonic folksong style.

If you don't mind talking about quintets with double bass, let's not forget the Götz. A bit of an oddball, if you take into account it was written about the same time as the Brahms piano quintet. I think the Götz and Vaughan Williams quintets must be counted among the last of their kind, since it was mainly the early romantics who used that scoring (Onslow, Farrenc). The Vaughan Williams piece is nice, but (like the Götz and the Schubert quintets!) rather light-weight. Perhaps this setting just doesn't agree with more serious, late-romantic music?

[Glazier]

Thanks to Silvertrust's sound bites and IMSLP scores I've been able to get an impression of the Goetz. (excuse lack of umlaut) The Goetz is good, but the "grunty" elephantine quality of a double bass added to a small group seems in evidence there, whereas with VW the db blends in better.

Slightly off topic , I'd like  to enthuse about Goetz' P quartet Op 6, a perfect Schumann era work.

[Kriton]

Thanks to Silvertrust's sound bites and IMSLP scores I've been able to get an impression of the Goetz. (excuse lack of umlaut) The Goetz is good, but the "grunty" elephantine quality of a double bass added to a small group seems in evidence there, whereas with VW the db blends in better.

There you are right.

And don't worry about the umlaut - I'm not a 100% sure about the correct spelling...

Slightly off topic , I'd like  to enthuse about Goetz' P quartet Op 6, a perfect Schumann era work.

Very nice indeed, but - as with most of his works - looking backward, rather than forward. But then again, that's thankfully not a crime anymore! Reminds me of Prince Louis Ferdinand's chamber music (which inspired Schumann).

[Greg K]

Informative posts - but still no mention (or did I miss it?) of the marvelous 1918 PQ by Hermann Zilcher (issued on a Largo CD some years ago).  There's a nice description of it here:

www.editionsilvertrust.com/zilcher-pno-quintet.htm

[eschiss1]

Informative posts - but still no mention (or did I miss it?) of the marvelous 1918 PQ by Hermann Zilcher (issued on a Largo CD some years ago).  There's a nice description of it here:

http://www.editionsilvertrust.com/zilcher-pno-quintet.htm

Also, a score and parts of it can be found here (though PD-US and CA, not EU.)

[eschiss1]

This is also off-topic since these are not must-hears, but has anyone heard and have an opinion of these piano quintets?

*Johann Bonawitz, quintet op.42 in B minor ca.1886.
*Blair Fairchild, quintet op.20 in D minor, by 1909
*Carl Georg Peter Grädener, quintets no.1 op.7 (by 1852) and no.2 op.57 in C sharp minor (ca.1871)
*Asger Hamerik, piano quintet op.6 in C minor (1862; recorded on Kontrapunkt)
*Hugo Kaun, piano quintet op.39 in F minor ca.1904.
*Edgar Stillman Kelley, piano quintet op.20 ca.1907. (this might be scanned in by Sibley Library eventually- they have the score, it's just not online, I mean... though since the composer died in 1944, the score would be PD-US/CA but not PD-EU, if so. Not recorded I think.)

[chill319]

I came to appreciate Heise through his Lieder, among the best I know. I have just recently become acquainted with the Heise Piano quintet in F major. It's one of those pieces that sounded pretty good at first hearing, and quite a bit better than pretty good after three attentive hearings (unlike a lot of my listening, which is at work or in the car). Not a bit like Schumann or Mendelssohn. A high-spirited romp ... yet serious, too. Heise's aim, I believe, was to provide a counterbalance to (what he heard as) the tragic Brahms's F-minor quintet (the one Schönberg orchestrated). To those who may not have heard it, I recommend the Heise quintet as a work brimming with vitality and a deceptively simple-sounding artistry, as with Dvorak.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

In absolute agreement with you - it is a delightful work. Comes from a far more 'innocent' world than Brahms, and (spot on right in your description) brims over with vitality, deceptively simple-sounding artistry....and a great deal of joy.

If the Pf Quintet comes from 1869, do also try (if you can get hold of it) the earlier Piano Trio in E flat from 1864. A lovely, fun-filled work.

I've got it on a disc c/w the Gade Piano Trio in F major from 1863. Another fresh and delightful work!

[eschiss1]

erm, btw, Schoenberg orchestrated Brahms' piano quartet no.1 in G minor, op.25 (I gather because chamber groups couldn't put it across, at least not with good balance, at the time) (anyway, not a light-hearted work, but less distressed/tragic than the quintet, especially with that Ongarese finale to close.)

[chill319]

Thanks for getting the Brahms/Schönberg connection right, Eric. I was obviously dozing.

I'm quite certain that I've heard an orchestration of opus 34, though. I wonder who it was by...

[eschiss1]

Apologies for being so picky.  (And while I'm still not positive I've run into any "must hear"s... hrm... hrm... actually, let me think about that before I say that, I've heard some _really_ good music in the last year or two; not "must hear" but perhaps "you might like it a whole lot" then... (someone sent me a tape of the Zarebski some years back so I've had the pleasure of its acquaintance for awhile now, and I wish I'd remembered to mention it, for instance.) Raff's quintet is pretty wonderful (ok, that too I didn't just first hear this year but have known for awhile...) (I see I still haven't listened to a broadcast of Ferdinand Hiller's piano quintet despite my increased interest in his music. My loss; will do so soon. Another one I've known for awhile I hope I mentioned or someone did is Rheinberger's in C, op.114; like his earlier and once very popular piano quartet, a charmer, I think.)