Romantic Dreams
Louise FARRENC (1804-1875)
Piano Quintet No.1 in A Minor, Op. 30 (1839) [31:10]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 14 (1855) [32:25]
Ironwood
rec. December 2019, February 2020, Eugene Goossens Hall, Ultimo Centre, Sydney, Australia
ABC 481 9887 [63:47]
The two piano quintets, both products of the French Romanticism, were written just sixteen years apart but are quite different. Farrenc’s work is steeped in the tradition of Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn. Saint-Saëns’s youthful Quintet, his earliest cyclic composition, projects a frank and confident mood which in many ways looks forward.
Louise Farrenc, born in Paris into a family of high artistic activity, was one of the first successful female composers in nineteenth-century France. She studied the piano with Moscheles and Hummel. She became an accomplished pianist, and gained considerable fame as a performer. She went on to study composition with Anton Reicha, and eventually held a professorship in piano at the Paris Conservatoire.
My way into Farrenc’s oeuvre was through her chamber music: the Wind Sextet and Trios performed by the OperaEnsemble (Brilliant 95319), and the piano quintets played by the Quintetto Bottesini (Brilliant 94815). I added a recording of the quintets by the Linos Ensemble (CPO 999 194-2); it is much more secure and detailed. This new recording is quite different. The gut strings and original period Érard piano gives Farrenc’s Quintet a new depth of colour. The brash overtones of the Quintetto Bottesini give way to the warmth and mellifluous nature of the music. The slightly slower tempi help: they serve to accentuate Farrenc’s melodic writing.
Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quintet needs less introduction; I have heard it described as his first great work. It was composed in 1855 but had to wait until 1865 before it was published. The piano was the composer’s instrument, which accounts for the dominant virtuoso role it plays in the Quintet. The piano is often in opposition to the string quartet, though it also engages in dialogue or joins the strings in ensemble and unison passages. The Quintet is an early work but it shows maturity and integrity, and deserves its fine reputation. I am familiar with the performance by the Nash Ensemble, part of a two-disc set (Hyperion CDA67431/2). There also is an equally good recording by Cristina Ortiz and the Fine Arts Quartet (Naxos 8.572904). There is little to choose between these recordings. Ironwood again are fractionally slower. It is the instruments that make the difference. Those two recordings are big-boned. Ironwood’s period instruments give a little more introspection and reflection, especially in the second movement Andante sostenuto. The romantic period performance offers a new perspective on the work. I would not be without any of these recordings, and I have a soft spot for Nash Ensemble’s version.
Ironwood’s playing is top-drawer. The sound is natural, a little subdued maybe but it works. So, a first-rate performance that stands out. The booklet notes are very fine. One section presents the composers and their music, the second gives a detailed account of the period performing practices and the instruments employed in this recording. This is a most rewarding recording, not just for the “authentic brigade”. It offers great insight into just how both the composers envisaged and heard their music.
Stuart Sillitoe
