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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Franck - String Quartet & Piano Quintet
Cristina Ortiz and the Fine Arts Quartet again join forces for this recording of Franck’s Piano Quintet.The extraordinary emotional range of this work is unified by the tight thematic relationships typical of the composer’s ‘cyclic’ structuring. His String Quartet, composed ten years later, is a summit of Franck’s achievement, also cyclically conceived and revealing his admiration of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms. “The Fine Arts Quartet… are at their very best in both slow movements, with Christina Ortiz matching their ebb and flow perfectly in the Quintet.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 **** “Ortiz and her colleagues realise all of Franck's pent-up feeling in a performance of a special musical refinement and commitment… The Fine Arts Quartet, too, are entirely at home in the very different scope of the String Quartet, relishing both the music's contrapuntal intricacy and its full-blown romanticism.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2010 “very fine accounts of both masterpieces. They have ardour and finesse in equal measure.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Hugo Wolf: String Quartet & Italian Serenade
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | A Guided Tour of the Romantic Era, Vol. 9
Misha Keylin (violin), Robert Koenig (piano), Roberto Diaz (viola), Roger Chase (viola), Francois-Joel Thiollier (piano), Jozsef Mukk (tenor), Cristina Ortiz (piano), Takako Nishizaki (violin), Jeno Jando (piano), Eric Lebrun (organ), Alexander Paley (piano), Howard Zhang (violin), Maria Kliegel (cello), Tatjana Franova (piano), Matthew Morley (organ) Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice, Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Budapest, Hungarian State Opera Chorus, Fine Arts Quartet, Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish National Ra, Martin Sieghart, Johannes Wildner, Keith Clark, Takuo Yuasa, Andrew Mogrelia, Roberto Benzi, Laszlo Kovacs, Michael Halasz, Barry Wordsworth, Antoni Wit, Robert Jones, Gunter Neuhold, Georg Tintner, Alfred Walter, Ondrej Lenard, Peter Guth | 
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| |  | A Guided Tour of the Romantic Era, Vol. 7
Thomas E. Bauer (baritone), Uta Hielscher (piano), Hans Jorg Mammel (tenor), Sibylla Rubens (soprano), Jeno Jando (piano), Maria Kliegel (cello), Boris Slutsky (piano), Ilya Kaler (violin), Karine Georgian (cello), Jan Willem Nelleke (piano), Jozsef Kiss (oboe), Benjamin Frith (piano), Bernd Glemser (piano) Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice, American Horn Quartet, Sinfonia Varsovia, Aquarius, Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Ireland National Symphony Orchestra, Fine Arts Quartet, Vienna Brahms Trio, Kodaly Quar, Antoni Wit, Johannes Wildner, Dariusz Wisniewski, Marc Michael de Smet, Andras Ligeti, Andrew Constantine |
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| |  | Saint-Saëns: Piano Quartet & Piano Quintet
Saint-Saëns holds a vital place in the history of French chamber music. At a time when his compatriots were more devoted to opera and song, Saint-Saëns (who wrote both, too) repeatedly produced chamber music of compelling individuality and lasting significance. The 1875 Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op. 41 remains one of the great works in the chamber repertory, a masterful example of the composer’s organisational skill and lyric gifts. The gorgeous Barcarolle is followed by the youthful Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14, a brilliantly confident work with a concerto-like rôle for the piano. “The performances could hardly be more finely attuned to the technical challenges, while the composer's own booklet-notes set the scene succinctly...As a 'feast for the senses', Whalley's music demonstrably has much to recommend it.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013 “A gorgeous programme of Saint-Saëns’ beguiling chamber music played with great authority and flair.” MusicWeb International, 26th April 2013 |
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| |  | Schumann: Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet & Märchenerzählungen
Between 1841 and 1843 Schumann wrote some of his greatest chamber works, among them the Piano Quartet and the Piano Quintet, both in E flat major. Written in an astonishing five-day period, the Quintet displays both the heroic and the lyric impulses in his music, boldness contrasting with songful tenderness, and march themes with lyricism. The Piano Quartet also exudes such qualities, not least in the ravishing slow movement, and the masterful breadth of Schumann’s expression. The four Märchenerzählungen are happy, energetic pieces. “A rather stately, though committed reading of the Piano Quintet. The Quartet sags in places too. Violin replaces clarinet in a highly enjoyable Fairy Tales.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 *** | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Kreisler & Zimbalist: String Quartets
The legendary Fritz Kreisler and his friend Efrem Zimbalist were both ranked among the greatest violinists of their time, becoming household names in America in the 1920s. Their generation, however, regarded Eugène Ysaÿe as ‘the master of us all’. These works all transcend mere virtuoso showmanship. Kreisler’s Quartet is filled with emotion and unpredictable harmonic shifts, while the tender, sometimes hauntingly beautiful melodies in Zimbalist’s Quartet hark back to the composer’s Russian origins. Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir emerges as a sensual chromatic journey towards a glorious musical sunrise. “It was an inspired idea to programme music by three of the finest violinists of the last century...The Fine Arts Quartet rise with aplomb to [the Zimbalist's] many interpretative and technical challenges, sustaining a glorious richness of tone, coupled with a portamento-inflected cantabile espressivo that sits hand in glove with the music's Romantic opulence. Fine, bold engineering too.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 **** “No lost masterpieces here but a disc of real interest for those aficionados of unusual chamber repertoire played to a very high standard” MusicWeb International, June 2012 “This curiosity links three virtuoso performer-composers, all friends, who in their day dominated the concert platform. Here, rather than flashy violin showpieces, we have examples of their work for string quartet and small orchestra. It's a positive festival of portamenti and queasy chromaticism” The Observer, 29th January 2012 | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Saint-Saëns: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2
The Fine Arts Quartet’s albums of Mendelssohn’s String Quintets (8570488) and Glazunov’s chamber music (8570256) were named “Recordings of the Year” by Musicweb International, and their recording of Schumann’s string quartets (8570151) was hailed by the American Record Guide as “one of the very finest chamber music recordings of the year”. “Deserving more frequent performances than they receive, Saint-Saëns’s two string quartets find persuasive champions in the Fine Arts Quartet...the influences are refracted through Saint-Saëns’s own lyrical and harmonic prism, and each work is as carefully crafted as it is extremely pleasurable to hear.” The Telegraph, 1st April 2011 **** “The Fine Arts Quartet are vibrant and thoughtful.” Sunday Times, 1st May 2011 *** “the first movement [of the G major], designed to illustrate 'Youth', is a delightful piece of Haydnry in which the lighter textures are more comfortable for the ear” BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 **** | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Beethoven - String Quintets
One of the best-kept secrets of chamber music, Beethoven’s String Quintet in C major, Op. 29, was written between the well-known ‘early’ and ‘middle’ string quartets. This strangely neglected masterpiece of startling originality is coupled here with Beethoven’s own transcription for string quintet of his early Piano Trio in C minor and the Fugue in D major, a musical curiosity written as an inducement to his publisher to make fewer printing errors. The Fine Arts Quartet has made many highly acclaimed Naxos recordings. “...the enlarged Fine Arts Quartet delivers a strongly committed performance of [the C major String Quintet], supported by a beautifully balanced but clear recording. They are particularly admirable in the finale, relishing the music's sudden bursts of aggression as well as its moments of outrageous humour” BBC Music Magazine, August 2010 ***** “The highly experienced Fine Arts Quartet (and their guest) represent a style of string-playing that places great stress on beautiful, rich tone. Beethoven's challenging, wonderfully imaginative writing for quintet in both the main works here...is realised in a way that always sounds rounded and well balanced.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2010 | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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Gramophone Magazine