July 25th 2008
Edward
Elgar (1857-1934)
String Quartet in E minor Op83
Allegro moderato
Piacevole (poco andante)
Allegro Molto
Piano Quintet in A minor Op84
Moderato
Adagio
Andante - Allegro
Maggini String Quartet
Peter Donohoe, Piano
Naxos 8.553737
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This disc was recorded in 1995 so was too early to be reviewed by MusicWeb but it has been a firm favourite in my collection because of the dynamic performance of the Piano Quartet with Donohoe and the Magginis at white heat. This is one of the bargains of the catalogue and should not be missed. As we have not reviewed it I feel able to add some quotes from the Naxos web-site:
"The Adagio of Elgar's
Quintet is alone worth the price of the CD...beautifully
captured by the Maggini Quartet and Peter Donohoe"
- Classic CD
"the Maggini Quartet impress with the luminous
refinement and beguiling tonal beauty of their
music-making" - Gramophone
"Peter Donohoe is outstanding in the Quintet"
- BBC Music Magazine
Our own Christopher Fifield
has written
The Piano Quintet also has the same air of melancholy
as the quartet, stemming no doubt from his concurrent
work on the cello concerto which was next to
come, though it tends to more eerie moments
- apparently a group of dead trees near the
cottage affected Elgar when writing the piece
in 1919, 'a ghostly sight in the evening'. The
work is notable for its ebb and flow of rubato
as well as its varied moods. The sublime Adagio
drew the best music from Elgar. No less memorable
are the brilliantly coloured guitar-like effects
towards the end of the first movement and the
Spanish element which Reed likened to a local
legend of monks in the area but which is now
pretty convincingly debunked and attributed
to Elgar's friend Algernon Blackwood, a writer
of ghost stories. The finale, with its cyclical
references to the first movement, has both passion
and subdued sensitivity true to the Elgarian
idiom.
| Piano Quintet 1st Mv Moderato here |
| Piano Quintet 2nd Mv adagio here |
| Piano Quintet 3rd Mv andante - Allegro here |
| Previous Quiz items and answers here |