Pacifica Quartet & Menahem Pressler - Brahms: Piano Quintet, Op. 34 - Schumann: String Quartet, Op. 41 No. 1 (2017)

The internationally celebrated, Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet joins forces with legendary pianist Menahem Pressler of the Beaux Arts Trio for Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34, a pillar of German Romanticism that opens with one of the most recognizable melodies in classical music. Pressler, a consummate chamber artist, performs the virtuosic piano part with a clarity and transparency that makes the piano seem like a fellow member of the string ensemble.

This noteworthy generation-crossing collaboration a half-century separates the pianist, who is in his 90s, from the quartet members yields a spacious, sweeping traversal of the Brahms Quintet that sets its own pace to build suspense and drama. While Pressler has performed the Brahms Quintet with marquee string quartets of the past 50 years, this is his first recording of it.

The album offers the unusual, perhaps unprecedented, pairing of Brahms’s early Piano Quintet with a string quartet by his champion Robert Schumann, in this case, the String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No.1, which the Quartet has been performing since early in its career. Dedicated to Mendelssohn, this buoyant, sprightly Romantic quartet showcases the Pacifica’s virtuosity and exuberant performance style while offering a contrast to Brahms’s moodier masterwork. This is the Quartet’s first recording of a Schumann work.

Currently quartet-in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, the Pacifica Quartet was previously quartet-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the University of Chicago. The Quartet received the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance and that same year was named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America. German-born pianist Menahem Pressler was a founding member of the illustrious, long-lived Beaux Arts Trio. The recipient of a Gramophone magazine Lifetime Achievement Award, he currently holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of Music at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

TRACKLIST

01. Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 : Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34: I. Allegro non troppo
02. Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 : Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34: II. Andante un poco adagio
03. Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 : Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34: III. Scherzo: Allegro
04. Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 : Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34: IV. Finale: Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo
05. String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1 : String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41 No. 1: I. Introduction: Andante espressivo - Allegro
06. String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1 : String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41 No. 1: II. Scherzo: Presto - Intermezzo
07. String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1 : String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41 No. 1: III. Adagio
08. String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1 : String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41 No. 1: IV. Presto