Schubert : Trout Quintet, Waltzes & Ländler

Album review

Four years passed between the recording of Schubert's Quintet in A major and its release on record to coincide with the 80th birthday of pianist Christoph Eschenbach. During those four years, the musicians sought to complete the program of this album to make the timing perfect. In addition to the very lively Truite, we find a few waltzes arranged for string quartet by Olivier Dejours and a bouquet of Ländler played on the piano by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, friend and regular partner of the Thymos Quartet. The essence of the program is therefore this Truite played in such a friendly way, with a fresh simplicity. It is the ideal vision of one of the few perfectly happy and tender works by Schubert, who seems to have forgotten his deep melancholy in the summer of 1819, at least for a while. The Thymos Quartet was formed in 2003 when four musicians from the Paris and Lyon Conservatories met, all members of the Orchestre de Paris directed at the time by Christoph Eschenbach, who became their mentor. They had already recorded Dvořák’s Quintet n° 2 with piano together in 2011. The Thymos performed in France and Europe before conquering the United States, China, Korea and Japan. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Details of the original recording : Recorded: 8–9 May 2016, Salle de répétition SR1 (1–5) & 27–29 September 2019, Amphithéâtre – Cité de la musique (6–7), Philharmonie de Paris, France