Of all the various configurations for chamber music ensembles, few composers frequently turned to the piano quintet; fewer still created works in the genre that have endured as prime examples of a composer's achievements in chamber music. Robert Schumann's great quintet inspired his close friend Johannes Brahms to follow suit. Brahms' Op. 34 Piano Quintet did not begin its existence as a piano quintet; rather, it started as a string quintet, then a work for two pianos, and finally ended up in its present guise and is not only one of the greatest examples in the genre, but also one of Brahms' finest chamber compositions. The performance on this Camerata album by pianist
Hiromi Okada and members of
Das Wiener Philharmonia Quintett sadly does little justice to the greatness of this piece. The opening movement is filled with unnecessary vacillations in tempo that are not indicated in the score. Balance is an issue throughout the recording, at times sounding like a duo between the first violin and piano with the remaining strings struggling to be noticed at all. Intonation within the strings is less than ideal and the quintet as a whole struggles to execute crisp, unison articulation.
Okada goes on to perform the Op. 79 Rhapsodies, which offer a far superior listening experience to the quintet.
Okada's playing, while maybe a bit melodramatic, is powerful and assured. With so many superior recordings of the quintet, though, this album is likely not a good choice for the Rhapsodies alone. The liner notes are poorly translated from the original Japanese and make some rather curious claims as to the "ineptness" of Boccherini and the "schizoid" personalities of Schubert and Schumann.