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5.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection of Martinu's chamber music, Nov 21 2003
This disc contains four performances of Martinu's chamber works, recorded during the 1994 Australian Festival of Chamber Music.The Piano Quartet is the longest work on the disc. It is in three movements, in a fast-slow-fast format. The first movement is strongly contrapuntal and rhythmic, yet full of melody, while the austere, melancholy second movement reserves the piano for the later, more dramatic stages. The work ends with a delightful allegretto finale which runs through a number of folk-music-inspired episodes before whirling to a conclusion. Shorter, but no less delightful, is the quartet for oboe, violin, cello and piano. The opening movement is moderately fast and distinctly rhapsodic in nature. This is followed by a brief slow movement that begins with big piano chords before moving towards more delicate material. The finale is again folk-music inspired, but much more concise than in the previous work. The viola sonata takes much further the rhapsodic tendency seen in the opening movement of the oboe quartet. The first movement is largely slow, and is characterised by long, lyrical, drawn-out melodies in the viola against a gently syncopated piano part. The finale is basically fast, though with constant changes in tempo that never allow any particular mood to prevail for long. The string quintet is the earliest work on the disc, and the most abrasive. The motor rhythms of the opening movement suggest the Bartok of the second quartet, while the bleak Largo slow movement is unusually dissonant for Martinu. The finale responds to the darkness of the slow movement, alternating joyous rhythmic vitality and more gentle, lyrical material. All four of these works are amongst the best of this prolific composer's chamber works, and the performances are all very good. Strongly recommended, particularly at the price.
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