While Dohnányi’s musical language was firmly rooted in the nineteenth century, the two chamber works on this reissue – championed by András Schiff and the Takács Quartet, no less – deserve much greater attention than they get. Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet was written when he was seventeen and bears the strong imprint of Brahms, courtesy of whom it received its first performance in 1895 in Vienna.
Using more idiomatic 20th-century language and published in 1921, Kodály’s Quartet quickly became established in the repertoire and rivalled Bartók’s contemporaneous Second Quartet in popularity. The rare Musikverein Quartet performance receives its first release on CD.
ERNŐ DOHNÁNYI
Quintet in C minor for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola & Cello, Op. 1
András Schiff, piano
Takács Quartet
Sextet for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Clarinet & Horn, Op. 37
András Schiff, piano
Kalman Berkes, clarinet
Radovan Vlatkovic, horn
Members of the Takács Quartet
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10*
Musikverein Quartet
*FIRST RELEASE ON CD
Recording Producer: Christopher Raeburn
Balance Engineers: Stanley Goodall (Dohnányi); John Dunkerley, Jack Law (Kodály)
Recording Locations: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, 12–14 June 1977 & March 1978 (Kodály); Schubert Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria, 30 July–1 August 1987 (Dohnányi)
Remastering Engineer: Paschal Byrne (Audio Archiving Company)
‘These Hungarian artists play with grace and a genuine delight in this music, and the clarinetist Kálman Berkes, produces many felicities of colour and tone.’ (Dohnányi) Gramophone
‘This must be an enormously rewarding quartet to play, as it certainly is to listen to.’ (Kodály) Gramophone