There is little to
choose interpretatively speaking between the same coupling issued
on ASV
CD DCA 1171 a couple of years ago and this new CPO
version. Both Tomer Lev and the Falk Quartet (ASV) and Treindl
and Vogler give spirited performances. The CPO versions are
quicker but not by much overall. On the other hand the CPO
acoustic is not as transparently revealing as that chosen by the
ASV team. The strenuous and tormented romantic melos is perhaps
warmer and more engulfing in the hands of Treindl who is
accustomed to the revival of romantic repertoire. He recorded
two volumes of Fuchs' violin sonatas
for Thorofon.
Clearly he also knows his Thuille as his recording of the Piano
Concerto - on CPO
again - surely proclaims.
The first of the two
piano quintets is more intensely romantic and Brahmsian. The
E flat major work is in four movements against the G minor work's
three. The writing was accomplished between the premiere of
one opera (Gugeline) and the completion of the other
(Lobetanz). It is also almost twice as long as the G
minor. With it one instantly senses a maturity and a mastery
although only twenty years separate the two works. There are
some shades of expressionist sympathies in this work which are
completely absent from the G minor. We also hear some tearfully
affecting lyrical writing too as in the Adagio at 6:33 onwards.
A thorough-going masculine urgency and optimism is refulgent
throughout the finale but there is also a lithe and inventive
fantasy to be heard in the pizzicato pages of the finale.
Can we now beg that
rather than duplicating discs Thuille's unrecorded or rarely
recorded works are tackled. There is a clamant need for recordings
of the cello sonata and the two violin sonatas.
Two stirring late-romantic
piano quintets that deserve to be heard and celebrated.
Rob Barnett
Oliver Treindl (piano)
