Dvorák - Quintet, Op.81
Dvorák - Bagatelles, Op.47
Braley; Ensemble Explorations; Dieltiens
Harmonia Mundi HMC901880

Release date May 2007

The Piano Quintet, written in the summer of 1887 and first performed the following year, came midway through Dvorák‘s compositional output and is defined by contrasts: lush romantic lyricism combined with fast and furious passages with much of the melodic material deriving from Czech folk music. Dieltiens’s beautifully warm cello sound, first heard in the opening bars of the exposition over a softly lilting piano accompaniment, sets the standard for the rest of the work. The musicians cling to every bar of this undulating score and Lewis-Deeva’s viola playing is particularly beautiful in the outset of the Andante con moto. Written about ten years before the Quintet, the Bagatelles make an excellent partner. They were written for the rather unusual combination of instruments: two violins, cello and harmonium, at the request of the critic and impresario Joseph Srb-Debrnov who happened to have a harmonium in his drawing room! Upon hearing this delightfully quirky set of pieces, more transparent (though not to their detriment) than the more mature quintet, an image is conjured up in my mind of a slightly plump, red-faced jolly character with a terrific sense of humour! In the wrong hands the harmonium could be a clumsy bedfellow to the agile strings but not here; the sinewy string sounds blends homogenously with the harmonium to create a truly unique yet evocative soundscape, light hearted though never flippant in the masterful hands of these musicians. With Roel Dieltens and Ensemble Explorations having already been awarded Gramophone Editor’s Choices for two discs, I for one would certainly nominate this latest offering for a third.

Reviewed by Dawn Cooke