Piano Quintets

[Brahmsian]

The Taneyev Piano Quintet is phenomenal!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

...Brahms (on & off, this has been my choice for greatest chamber piece ever written)...

Was just about to post the same thing before I scanned this thread. No more sublime creation exists in the chamber realm (very nearly anywhere, really).

[snyprrr]

I have to say that the Franck piano quintet has pretty much become my favorite piano quintet (at the present), surpassing Schumann's and Brahms'.

Maybe that will be short lived once I give my first ever spin of the Feldman piano quintet (piano + string quartet).  70+ minute 1 movement work, wow!

Kronos? You've never heard that disc ?? Can't wait to hear reviews. The definition of "expectant moment".

[snyprrr]

I think I now have to add Martinu to the short list of awesome piano quintets.  I've been listening to them on repeat and I can't get enough.

Who's playing?

[snyprrr]

ok, you Schumann, Brahms, and Franck people are forcing me to go find a version.

I used to have the Naxos Sch/Brhm,...what are the recommends here?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

ok, you Schumann, Brahms, and Franck people are forcing me to go find a version.

I used to have the Naxos Sch/Brhm,...what are the recommends here?

Brahms: Gulda/Hagen, Fleisher/Emerson, Aller/Hollywood

Schumann: Argerich, et. al. (EMI), Aller/Hollywood (looking at Gulda/Hagen)

Franck: Richter/Borodin

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I think I now have to add Martinu to the short list of awesome piano quintets.  I've been listening to them on repeat and I can't get enough.

Did you get the Naxos? I like both 5tets, but I think the 2nd is superior...I also enjoy how strongly they contrast with each other.

Schumann's Quintet is unsurpassable; Dvorak is the literal imitation of it. I discovered it through Igmar Bergman's masterpiece, Fanny and Alexander.

That's where I first heard it, too. I wonder though why you say "Dvorak is the literal imitation of it"? I think Dvorak's style is very distinctive, quite different from Schumann; it's hard to confuse Dvorak with anyone else.

I used to have the Naxos Sch/Brhm,...what are the recommends here?

I haven't heard many competing versions, but the Arcanto Qt. version of the Brahms, on Harmonia Mundi, is smokin' hot. It's become one of my favorite chamber music discs. (coupled with Op. 51/1)

[DavidW]

Did you get the Naxos? I like both 5tets, but I think the 2nd is superior...I also enjoy how strongly they contrast with each other.

Yup the naxos.  

Who's playing?

Snips that is Kosarek and Martinu Quartet.

[Brahmsian]

Kronos? You've never heard that disc ?? Can't wait to hear reviews. The definition of "expectant moment".

Re:  Feldman quintet, yes it is Kronos recording.  Got from the library.  Haven't listened to it yet.

[lisa needs braces]

Dvorak's second piano quintet is as great a work as his Cello Concerto and symphonies numbers 7 through 9.

[snyprrr]

I like fish.

[abidoful]

I'm now sight-reading (with a harmonium... ) the Piano Quartett "Quartetto Sinfonico"(1917) by Arvo Laitinen. I love it; he was a Post-Wagnerian who composed mainly as a young man and later tought music theory in the Helsinki Sibelius-Academy and was a major (at least in Finland) Wagner scholar who was the first in Finland to translate all Wagners Leitmotives in Finnish. He also was a great admirer of Anton Bruckner.

Great work this Quartetto, very romantic so far

[snyprrr]

I'm now sight-reading (with a harmonium... ) the Piano Quartett "Quartetto Sinfonico"(1917) by Arvo Laitinen. I love it; he was a Post-Wagnerian who composed mainly as a young man and later tought music theory in the Helsinki Sibelius-Academy and was a major (at least in Finland) Wagner scholar who was the first in Finland to translate all Wagners Leitmotives in Finnish. He also was a great admirer of Anton Bruckner.

Great work this Quartetto, very romantic so far

You don't have a synth lying around?

[abidoful]

You don't have a synth lying around?

nope

[tarantella]

Very charming Piano Quintet by Dussek - performed very well by a British chamber music group
http://www.christinecroshaw.com/discography

[Maciek]

I've just noticed that YouTube has quite a number of quintets to offer (many unknown to me).

And yes, Juliusz Zarebski's masterpiece is available as well - in three different renditions!

After a (very) brief sampling, I have taken to the emotional intensity of this version (no performers quoted):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3367pk7wk4

In comparison, these guys (whoever they are, again - no information) seem to be asleep at the beginning. But they do pick up the pace soon enough. The pianism did not strike me as very poetic, unfortunately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEHZXAbctr4

This last version lets you actually see the people playing, but the interpretation (at least based on what I've sampled so far) seems... hm... tepid. Still, it's an actual video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sElKKXKong

Perhaps I should actually sit through each of them, but so far only the first has really caught my interest, so maybe I'll go back to it now...

[snyprrr]

I just heard samples of Pfitzner's PQ (three recordings!): WOW, this is a muscular, passionate, dark piece (mit bright schtuff too). Has anyone heard this? It sounds really really good. All three recs (CPO, Prieser, Orfeo) have the clarinet Sextett as filler.

[abidoful]

I just heard samples of Pfitzner's PQ (three recordings!): WOW, this is a muscular, passionate, dark piece (mit bright schtuff too). Has anyone heard this? It sounds really really good. All three recs (CPO, Prieser, Orfeo) have the clarinet Sextett as filler.

I haven't heard that, but I like his chamber stuff a lot; the violin sonata and the SQ's. as well as the cello sonata.

[snyprrr]

oy, I've been gorging on a fresh batch of PQs, to the point I feel like a Roman in the vomitorium, haha! A steady diet of these things,... can it clog your arteries?

But I couldn't let this Medtner PQ go one minute longer. I'm playing it over and over, it's that delectable to listen to.

It's just so smooth and rich, in a way like that chocolate cake from the 2nd Matrix movie. The climaxes aren't hysterical, and the invention in bubbly.

Truly, there is a non turgid ( ) thickness to the glutenous mid section of this music that makes it seem like it's wearing a toasty comforter on a winter's night.

The opening of the 1st mvmt (Molto placido!) has such a fluffy lilt to it, with plucked strings gently accenting the piano chords. Within moments, we are on a slow moving sled across the snowy hills. Well, I don't know if it has to be wintry, but I'm just not hearing 'Summer Music".

Is this Taneyev-meets-Faure? I'm sure most people will compare to Rachy, but, what piece of his would we compare to? The musical language here seems to be on this side of Faure: elusive, but not too. It's melodic appeal isn't as obvious as Faure's in his two (or Shosty, for that matter); in this regard, Taneyev would be the closer compare. I even feel like I'm hearing a little Russian Finzi here!

This recording with Korobov and the State Prokofiev Quartet is really good, and makes me want to here the Demidenko (more like slavering).

Anyone else as impressed as I?

[abidoful]

Anyone else as impressed as I?

No--i don't know the piece.

But what you wrote certainly made me want to hear it. I know Medtners (that name reminds me of Ford Edsel--funny...) Concerto 2 and some solo piano works. For a russian composer he seems a bit "germanic". He has BTW that wild SONATA-VOCALISE, for voice and piano (!).

Dis anyone heard that?