Elgar: Piano Quintet; Walton: Piano Quartet

Approfondimenti

After years of recording more or less exclusively for the Delos label, in addition to one-off projects for Koch and Arabesque, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has begun to branch out with its own label, CMS Studio Recordings. On this disc, its second release, Chamber Music Society artistic co-director and pianist Wu Han led a stellar group of players -- violinists Ani Kavafian and Arnaud Sussmann, violist Paul Neubauer, and cellist Fred Sherry -- through two monuments of English chamber music: Edward Elgar's A minor Piano Quartet, Op. 84, and William Walton's D minor Piano Quartet. It is an interesting combination, in that these works were written at the same time -- 1918-1919 -- but from completely different motivations and perspectives. Elgar's work was in part inspired by the older composer's interest in the supernatural and ghosts; while for him, his piano quartet sounded "weird," to us it is the accomplished and fulfilling statement of a seasoned composer, technically solid, expressive, and personal in style. Walton was 17 years old when he wrote his piano quartet, and it has all of the brightness and enthusiasm of youth, a work written more than a little under the spell of Debussy and even containing some brief, repetitive "futuristic"-sounding passages that would have sounded like noise to Elgar. The Walton certainly does not impress us with its modernity in the current context, other than sounding more like the musical world-as-it-is than the Elgar; however, its energy, vigor, and extraordinary beauty are both captivating and timeless. The year 1919 was pivotal in the cultural history of England; Britons began to realize that the vast majority of their brightest and best -- the generation born in the 1890s -- were not coming home from the Great War, and American jazz arrived on British soil that year, though not soon enough to impact any of the music heard on this disc. While Walton's music is clearly adaptable, optimistic, and tinged with a slight melancholy, Elgar escapes into a fantasy world. However, it was one that, for Elgar, had finite boundaries; Elgar never touched his piano quartet again, whereas Walton continued to make subtle changes to his piano quartet to near the end of his life. While these performances serve the letter of the scores with respect and careful parsing of the musical texts, they are nevertheless full-blooded and passionate readings of both works, embodying the best of both worlds in painstaking preparation and go-for-broke spontaneity. One major concern of CMS Studio Recordings is that of recording quality; the result must be optimum in an audiophile sense. This disc certainly realizes the goal, placing the listener right on the stage with these extraordinary players. If your tastes run to chamber music, then CMS Studio Recordings' Elgar-Walton: Piano Quartets will be like a banquet.
© TiVo