Search - Gabriel Faure, Auryn Quartet, Peter Orth :: Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quintets 1 & 2

Belle-Français Art-Nouveau...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 06/06/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Strictly speaking, the genre of piano quintet describes an ensemble for string quartet and piano; therefore Mozart, Beethoven, R.-Korsakov, Caplet, and Magnard's masterpieces for piano and winds execute a different form.

Schubert and Hummel's delightful quintets substitute double-bass for second violin, and so it is with Schumann and Brahms that the genuine piano quintet really appears.

Thereafter, this interesting genre attracted numerous artists to construct at least one significant work: we have piano quintets of everyone from Arensky, Bax, and Beach, via Dohnányi, Dvorák, and Elgar, to Martinu, Reger, and Taneyev et alii.

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Among the French, the genre became as important as the violin sonata: Cras, (Dumont-)Farrenc, Franck, Hahn, D'Indy, LeFlem, Pierné, Saint-Saëns, Schmitt, Vierne, and Widor all produced important essays in the genre. And Fauré is surely not the least of these.

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Of course books should be written about Fauré's exquisite personal style and unique musical language. Here in brief we may cite his distinctive synthesis of vigour and languor; sanguinity and melancholy; levitas and gravitas.

Moreover, his luxuriantly expanded tonality incorporates pungent chromaticism and modal expressivity without forsaking consoling aural benchmarks.

Too, his ambidextrously hypnotic syncopated rhythms are utterly characteristic, while his continuously developing forward-moving chains of unfolding sequences of ecstatic melody give the impression of an inevitable and timeless statement (à la Proust).

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Fauré's two Piano Quintets are supreme examples of his art wherein the clarity of instrumentation is most appreciable. The tessitura of the bowed instruments is deftly interpolated with featherlight arpeggiated chords from the percussive piano to create a boustrophedonic mosaic of sound in time.

The moods are by turns ambient, ebullient, affecting, and affirmative.

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Two Parnassian Piano Quintets:

No. 1 (d-minor), Op. 89 [1905] ~:30 mins;

No. 2 (c-minor), Op. 115 [1921] ~:30 mins.

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cf. Proust's description of "Vinteuil"'s music--"expressing the inexpressible"--in

In Search of Lost Time: Proust 6-pack (Proust Complete)



Too:

Fauré Piano Music / Kathryn Stott

Fauré: Violin Sonatas

Debussy, Faure, Ravel Piano Trios

Gabriel Faure: Piano Quartets No.1 & 2

Fauré: Piano Quintets

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Hahn/Vierne: Piano Quintets

Jean Cras: Quintette; Quatuor à cordes

Quintet Piano & Strings/Sonata Violin & Piano

Gabriel Pierné: La musique de chambre, Vol. 1

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(Cover-art nice characteristic cityscape "Riverbank" [1875] by lesser-known Impressionistic-Realist Gustave Caillebotte.)

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