The Piano Quintet from 1941 comes, obviously, from the other end of the spectrum. It is "neo-classic," which here translates into "spiky." The first two mvmts. have that young-man-on-a-mission sound, very exhuberant. I don't want to say that Hindemith is the closest ally here: perhaps him, and a bit of late Bartok.
I can't say these first two mvmts. made me think of "masterpiece," but the third, the slow mvmt., started off very well indeed. By the time this Qnt. ended I was satisfied (more so than when it began). Though not in the league of Bloch's No.1, or with the immediate appeal of the Piston, this work has footprints. There certainly aren't that many PQs around this time to compare it with (Bloch No.2, perhaps, which I don't have anymore).
All in all, this is a very enigmatic release to my ears. The PQ brims with energy, whilst the SQ has that IndianSummer feeling, albeit from a Northern perspective. Once again, the bare cover art of this cd seems to be dead on, though I would have preferred more than one tree collage! In a way, this sounds to me as if Bloch had lived into the '80s.
The Sinfonia Lahti Chamber Ensemble (w/Peter Lonnqvist, piano) play very orchestrally, which certainly befits the SQ. Of course, the sound is fine.