Label: CAvi
Format: CD
Barcode: 4260085535279
Catalog number: AVI 8553527
Releasedate: 05-05-23
Format: CD
Barcode: 4260085535279
Releasedate: 05-05-23
- Two of the most important composers around the turn of the century, the French César Franck from the late 19th c. and the Swiss Frank Martin, who was born into the 20th c.. Both have shaped and contributed intensively to the francophile music period at that time.
- Quintets for piano and string quartet is basically a small piano concerto, the piano plays the leading role and the strings presenting the orchestral part. This is a very much liked genre by the musicians.
- Both works are rather not very well reprented in the catalogues. This is a brand new recording since more than ten years.
- Quintets for piano and string quartet is basically a small piano concerto, the piano plays the leading role and the strings presenting the orchestral part. This is a very much liked genre by the musicians.
- Both works are rather not very well reprented in the catalogues. This is a brand new recording since more than ten years.
Late Romantic Piano Quintets
“… We only have two hands, and our ten fingers are not capable of exploiting all the possibilities”: that is how composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) once described the inadequacies of the keyboard. However, pianist Martin Klett and the members of the Armida Quartet view things somewhat differently. Similarly to the string quartet as a whole ensemble, the piano forms “a perfect unit in itself”, Klett affirms.
And the musical genre of the piano quintet has its own special charm, owing to that autonomy and independence of its two main elements. According to Klett, the piano quintet is ”the perfect line-up in chamber music”, since “the two components have a wide spectrum of sonorities at their disposal, enabling them to bring out all the timbre qualities we know from chamber as well as orchestral music, from the most intimate sonorities imaginable to the dense amassment of sound we encounter in a symphony!”
The five musicians on this recording savor every nuance of the line-up in which they are involved; in so doing, they are able to highlight the two highly different musical personalities of Frank Martin and César Franck (1822-1890), each of whom approached the genre from thoroughly different angles. Frank Martin viewed César Franck, two generations his elder, as an important master: “the first musician [...] who enabled me to disengage myself from Classical music”, as he remarked in retrospect.
Born in Geneva, Frank Martin would eventually become a true “outsider of new music”; his Piano Quintet, one of his early works, still bears the traces of the “Classical” tradition as well as of the legacy of his musical predecessor César Franck. What did Frank Martin mean by “Classical”? For him, it was clear: “J’étais dans Bach, encore dans Bach et dans Bach toujours...” (“I was fully into Bach, and still into Bach, and always into Bach”).
(Excerpts from the liner notes)
“… We only have two hands, and our ten fingers are not capable of exploiting all the possibilities”: that is how composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) once described the inadequacies of the keyboard. However, pianist Martin Klett and the members of the Armida Quartet view things somewhat differently. Similarly to the string quartet as a whole ensemble, the piano forms “a perfect unit in itself”, Klett affirms.
And the musical genre of the piano quintet has its own special charm, owing to that autonomy and independence of its two main elements. According to Klett, the piano quintet is ”the perfect line-up in chamber music”, since “the two components have a wide spectrum of sonorities at their disposal, enabling them to bring out all the timbre qualities we know from chamber as well as orchestral music, from the most intimate sonorities imaginable to the dense amassment of sound we encounter in a symphony!”
The five musicians on this recording savor every nuance of the line-up in which they are involved; in so doing, they are able to highlight the two highly different musical personalities of Frank Martin and César Franck (1822-1890), each of whom approached the genre from thoroughly different angles. Frank Martin viewed César Franck, two generations his elder, as an important master: “the first musician [...] who enabled me to disengage myself from Classical music”, as he remarked in retrospect.
Born in Geneva, Frank Martin would eventually become a true “outsider of new music”; his Piano Quintet, one of his early works, still bears the traces of the “Classical” tradition as well as of the legacy of his musical predecessor César Franck. What did Frank Martin mean by “Classical”? For him, it was clear: “J’étais dans Bach, encore dans Bach et dans Bach toujours...” (“I was fully into Bach, and still into Bach, and always into Bach”).
(Excerpts from the liner notes)
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1Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano F Minor (1919)I Andante con moto05:52
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2Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano F Minor (1919)II Tempo di minuetto05:11
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3Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano F Minor (1919)III Adagio ma non troppo07:28
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4Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano F Minor (1919)IV Presto05:05
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5Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola and Cello F Minor, FWV 7 (1879)I Molto moderato quasi lento – Allegro15:10
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6Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola and Cello F Minor, FWV 7 (1879)II Lento con molto sentimento09:53
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7Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola and Cello F Minor, FWV 7 (1879)III Allegro non troppo ma con fuoco09:16