Customer Reviews

Dvorak: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81; Piano Quartet in E Flat Major, Op. 87

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The performances of these two pieces is flawless. The recording quality is very good for Deutsche Gramophon--well rounded, sonorous, not too brash and not the slightest bit lumpy. The music is simply beautiful. This is an essential chamber music entry into anyone's collection.

I've had this recoridng for the better part of 10 years and return to it often. It's simply amazing. These are first rate chamber pieces played to pieces by outstanding muscicians. Rich, vibrant, soaring and firey are a few adjectives to describe this incredible coupling. Buy this disk!

Walk into the record departments of any music store in the land and you'll find the Dvorak section has 15 different versions of the "New World" symphony, a couple of Slavonic Dances, and not much else. Too bad, because his chamber music is plentiful and absolutely gorgeous. The two works on this recording by the Emerson Quartet are among the best, and the performances here are crisp, deep and rich. Highly recommended.

These are deservedly popular works - perhaps too popular; I think the first movement of the A Major quintet was appropriated by some unmemorable Hollywood production. Younger listeners will be spared the unbidden mental associations attending the second (Dumka) movement which was plagiarised into a saccharine pop-song in the 'sixties.

Regardless of this nonsense, these are wonderful works stuffed full with all those very idiomatic Czech influences which characterised so much of Dvorak's writing when he was at his most musically confident. Ebullient and hummably tuneful, as previously has been suggested these works can be an excellent introduction to the world of chamber music, so often and erroneously regarded as being recondite and difficult to penetrate. If nothing else, this quintet and quartet put the lie to that.

Others have commented upon the recording quality - certainly Deutsche Grammophon can be very inconsistent in this regard. Perhaps this is something to do with production batches for the sound of my example is quite acceptable.

Great music, great performance, great buy.

NOTE: The heading shows four stars only. My intention had been to award five but I hit the wrong button and my editing skills have proved insufficient to add the fifth.

I think the Amazon reviewer is right to point out that Menahem Pressler, who comes into this recording as an elder statesman (much as Leon Fleisher does for the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Emersons), bringing a broader, more relaxed way of phrasing. The Emersons adapt to him a good deal of the time. This is an expansive interpretation of the Dvorak Piano Quintet that isn't as driven, lean, and angular as one expects form them. At the same time, you quckly realize that the strings lead the performance. In his famous account with the Borodin Quartet (Philips), Sviatoslav Richter clearly dominates the proceedings. I wish Pressler had done more of that, but in any event this is an accomplsihed, successful reading with a charm and warmth I rarely find from the Emersons. In my experience there have been only a handufl of outstanding recordings of this beloved work, and this is the latest.

There re even fewer outstanding recordings of Dvorak's Piano quartet No. 2, one of his major chamber works and the one I would point to after the Piano Quintet as his most inspired. The work is built on the grand scale of Brahms's Piano Quartets, and from the first fiery allegro (it's marked Allegro con fuoco), Dvorak attains Brahms's propulsive sweep. The Lento that follows is gentler and more reflective than a slow movement form Brahms; it displays Dvorak's trait of lyric melanchily. The Scherzo is a lilting hesitation waltz with a considerable gypsy flavor sprinkled in. The Rondo finale is a bit subdued compared to what Brahms does at the end of his Piano quartet No. 1 and is, on the whole, not quite a crowning glory to the work. The Emersons and Pressler give a balanced reading that could afford more abandon and energy here and there, yet overall it's very fine.

BTW I didn't detect the serious sonic flaws that two other reviewers complain of. DG is in the habit of boosting the treble (reportedly because Europeans live in small apartments that tend to absorb high frequencies and cramp the sound), but the violin tone didn't sting my ears here.

Every string player should own a copy of this recording. Classic and essential listening for any young or old string players out there. The Emerson String Quartet has produced a great recording here.

The Dvorak piano quintet and piano quartet are both uncommonly fine pieces of music. The composer, a noted melodist, has truly outdone himself in both works. This DG recording, which I purchased at Amazon, beautifully captures the superb playing of the Emerson Quartet with pianist Menahem Pressler. I have never heard these pieces played better. First rate artists, first rate music! Highly recommended!

SHAME ON DG. The Emerson Quartet and Mr. Pressler are superlative, but the sound quality of the the strings when "forte" is called for is horrendous. The music comes across as a cacaophony. What a shame.

This CD contains a very nice interpretation of Dvorak's piano quintet op. 81 with the bewitching second movement, the "Dumka". Highly recommended although the technical quality of the recording is hardly perfect.

Because the piano quintet is difficult to compose and rare, I offer this customer review as a complement to ones on three other specimens of the form by Schumann, Raff and Brahms. All four pieces are masterpieces. The dates are Schumann's in 1842; Raff's in 1862; Brahms' in 1864; and Dvorak's in 1887. My CD versions of the ones by Schumann and Brahms are on Philips Duos; and the Raff on MDG Gold. The four works convey four aspects of Romanticism: Schumann, its sentimental side; Raff, its continuity with the clasical past via Mendelssohn; Brahms, its self-expressive side; and Dvorak, its correlation with nationalism. In terms of Meyer Abrams' The Mirror and the Lamp, Schumann's is the most "pragmatic" in its commitment to persuade an audience to adopt an ethical attitude; Raff's, the most "objective" in its concern for a finished product; Brahms' the most "expressive" in its revelation of the composer's sovereign volition, not for the sake of persuasion but as self-realization in a manner analogous to Van Gogh's paintings; and Dvorak's, the most "mimetic" in making an epic impression of the Czech worldview. Schumann evokes sympathy; Raff, respect; Brahms, astonishment; and Dvorak, participation.

Schumann engages the interest due to a family member; Raff, to a professional; Brahms, to a prophet-intellectual; and Dvorak, to a leader. Schumann's work opens with a bright, forthright melody; but there is no mistaking the "intimacy" of the music even in the first movement. The halting minor key of the slow second movement suggests that our family member is attending a funeral. The flowing melody suggests a memorial of the "dear departed"; and the agitated music a moment of angry grief. The scales that open the scherzo sound like practicing the piano at home. The brisk, fifteen-note sequence of the finale's theme delivers a "pragmatic," instructional message.

Dvorak's opening movement is the most lyrical of the four works. Rich melodies such as this carry the same nationalistic implication as in Smetana's and Tchaikovsky's music. Dvorak's melody is national-testimonial in the same way as the famous second number of Smetana's Ma Vlast. The brilliant workmanship of the movement is calculated to deliver this melody as a manifestation of nationalistic pride. Melody dominates the work to an extent unmatched in the other three quintets. The equally emphatic slow movement stays on cue by delivering more of the same, consistent view of the world. The unity of the whole work is its striking feature and consistent with its mimetic nature. Raff's workmanship is intriguing in itself; but Dvorak's serves a larger meaning expressed through dominant melodies. The Emerson Quartet and Pressler are remarkably self-effacing as though caught up in something larger than all of us. The third movement scherzo is an epitome of folk music like a big communal dance scene in an epic novel. The quick finale plunges even further into this sense of self-effacing participation. Dvorak belongs to a culture to an extent that does not apply to the other three composers at all.