What entrancing music this is: elusive and enigmatic. It demonstrates
how unjust is the relative neglect of Fauré’s chamber works.
For
this attractive new Naxos recording the Fine Arts Quartet
comprises: Ralph Evans and Efim Boico (violins), Yuri Gandelsman
(viola) and Wolfgang Laufer (cello) with the pianistic talents
of Cristina Ortiz. Evans, Boico and Laufer have been performing
together for over 25 years. This team’s readings compare very
well with that on the acclaimed Hyperion equivalent recorded
back in 1995 with Domus (Susan Tomes (piano), Krysia Osostowicz
(violin), Timothy Boulton (viola) and Richard Lester (cello))
with the additional talent of Anthony Marwood (violin).
Fauré’s
Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 89 occupied him intermittently
over approaching twenty years as ideas occurred and as problems
were solved. The opening movement begins with a beautiful,
plaintive, long-breathed melody for the strings, developing
over limpid, rippling piano figurations. The music moves on
through more austere, wistful and passionate moods: Domus
are quicker paced and intense at 10:25 while the Fine Arts’
reading is dreamier, more other-worldly and heartfelt. This
movement includes a particularly beguiling melody at about
3:23 - on the Naxos recording. The gentle central Adagio
movement is sweetly melancholic and introspective. Both
the Naxos and Hyperion recordings clock in at 10:56. Both
have beautiful little felicities of nuance, dynamics and shading.
The concluding Allegretto moderato is a lighter-veined
divertissement – again, the two ensembles sharing the same
timing of 7:22; the Domus team displaying a lighter-hearted
attitude, the opening piano figures being more emphatically
bell-like.
Fauré’s
devoted pupil, Charles Koechlin, commenting on the Second
Piano Quintet, observed that it ‘was with pleasant surprise
that people found such vigorous and youthful music in a veteran
composer … Perhaps we see in this … the finest first movement
of Gabriel Fauré.’ This opening movement certainly opens more
vigorously yet there is that same elusive ambiguity, too,
added to subtle rhythmic shifting between triple and quadruple
time. The Fine Arts reading is nearly a minute slower than
Domus who are more forceful yet quite charming. The Fine Arts’
reading is that much more intense. The second Allegro vivo
movement is a light-hearted, quicksilver scherzo with
rapid scale figures for the piano and a lilting waltz introduced
by the strings. The Domus reading is technically dazzling
and their waltz lilts beautifully but overall their reading
does not quite appeal as much as that of the Fine Arts. The
long Andante third movement has something of the melancholy
of Fauré’s First Piano Quintet. It finds Domus lingering unusually
longer at 10:57, as opposed to Fine Arts’ 10:16. Domus show
a more deeply felt air of gentle resignation whereas the Fine
Arts team opt for a more romantic, more upbeat, more optimistic
view. The Allegro molto finale has a high-spirited
outlook and it appears from Fauré’s letters that he enjoyed
working on it. Here Domus regain their faster-paced spirit;
their exuberance is countered by the Fine Arts artists who
find a more autumnal quality.
Two
magical, enchanting chamber works in alluring performances
by the Fine Arts Quartet and Cristina Ortiz. I would not want
to be without the Hyperion Domus ensemble recording either,
both are magical.
Ian Lace
