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Mon, 01 Sep 2008

Schubert and Mozart piano

Schubert, piano quintet "Trout"
Mozart, piano quartet in E flat
Yefim Bronfman
Pinchas Zukerman
Jethro Marks
Amanda Forsyth
Joel Quarrington,
Sony BMG

In honour of the Schubert piece, this CD has pictures of trout fishing flies on its cover. Ah, I thought, trout fishing! It's been a little while, and then I had visions of a bankside summer's day, the buzzing of insects under a shady tree, and a trout taken, and eaten at a nearby hostelry, and washed down by quantities of a fine French white - the whole of which I haven't actually experienced yet.

Yes, I do digress but I did wonder whether the Schubert piece would be programatically redolent of any of this. No, it wasn't but it is a rather nice piece of music and is, apparently, the favourite of a great many people. It was written in Steyr, Austria and is said to reflect Schubert's love of the beauty of the region.

Mozart is credited with the founding of the piano quartet but beyond that I'm not quite sure why these pieces are together other than Austrianness - thematically, and musically, they don't flow at all. The Schubert piece delightfully winds itself around its theme whereas the Mozart is more lugubrious and heavy-handed... almost like an excercise turned out in slight boredom for people who weren't liked that much. I imagine more than a few people will disagree with my assessment. (Baron K)

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