César Franck: Violin Sonata, Piano Trio No.1 & Piano Quintet - Vierne: Piano Quintet

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French chamber music is, in general, underexposed, notwithstanding the popularity of Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor and Violin Sonata in A major. Those two works receive strong performances here from a subset and an expanded version, respectively, of the Wanderer Trio. The players capture the over-the-top quality of both works, the exceptional difficulty and range of the piano part in the sonata, and the emotional extremes of the Quintet, but what makes this double album a must for chamber music lovers is the presence of the other two works on the album, both of them much less common: the Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 42, of Louis Vierne and Franck's Piano Trio No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 1, No. 1. The Vierne quintet is a revelation. The booklet makes much of Vierne's indebtedness to Franck, and indeed, Franck's cyclical procedure and his general combination of contrapuntal density with intense expressivity are present. Yet the work is wholly characteristic of Vierne. It often has the flavor of Vierne's better-known organ music (sample the Larghetto sostenuto slow movement), and it has a distinctively somber tone resulting from its origins as a memorial piece for the composer's son, dead in World War I. The Franck F sharp minor trio, one of several early Franck trios, is in a Mendelssohnian vein, but Franck's melodicism was fully present even at this early date (1839). The program as a whole sustains interest over its length, and Harmonia Mundi's sound from the Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers is resonant and idiomatic, not damaging the players' properly extreme dynamic range. An exciting chamber music release.

© James Manheim /TiVo