Brahms: Piano Quintet - The Schubert Ensemble

Brahms
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 (1862–4)
What's astonishing about this monumental and utterly complete masterpiece is that it took Brahms such a long time to ‘find’ its final form. His versions first for string quintet, then for two pianos, could not unlock its viscerally expressive potential.

Two big, expansive movements frame two of extreme opposites: the rocking Andante is exquisitely tender, one of those lullabies to soothe Brahms's own pain, while a volcanic Scherzo must be the most powerfully dynamic he ever wrote.

Throughout there's a sense of titanic, violent energy under incredible structural control.

'The Schubert Ensemble understand completely the symphonic ambition that sweeps through Brahms’s chamber music. It’s all about grandeur and they  have it in fistfuls. They capture perfectly the majesty of the Piano Quintet in F minor, from the first few bars of its imposing opening theme, lending a  sonorous beauty to the delicate andante, and storming through the tumultuous finale.' 
Stephen Pritchard, The Observer 

Accompanying pieces
The Piano Quartet in E flat by Dvořák, Brahms’s great friend and admirer, provides a complete contrast in this programme. Written in only six weeks in the summer of 1889, it is a spontaneous and predominantly sunny work, full of song and dance, imbued with Czech folk idioms, and dazzling in its constant variety of instrumental colour. 

'They [The Schubert Ensemble] show a strong appreciation of the inherent drama of these works, particularly in the Piano Quartet. I have rarely  encountered a more satisfying performance of the first movement, and the depth the players bring to the Lento is remarkable.' 
Jan Smazcny, BBC Music Magazine 

Mahler’s Piano Quartet Movement is the perfect appetiser before these two great masterpieces. This moody and atmospheric piece was written in 1876 when the great symphonist was only sixteen and a student at the Vienna Conservatoire, and is his only extant chamber work.

Part of the Kings Place's Chamber Classics Unwrapped concert series in 2014.