Supraphon's Service Towards Fibich

 

They've done the composer proud, methinks.

Supraphon has offered many works from many genres by the Czech composer, and thus has done a mighty service to its listeners.

This recording of Fibich's piano-based chamber music is no less fine.

His early Piano Quartet is effusively Romantic, an aspect fully played up by its longer opening movement. The e-minor key allows the music to lean in towards the outwardly passionate, and is the high point of the work. As compared to his more familiar symphonies, where Fibich is Romantically explosive, here the composer injects real feelings into this music.

The second movement is more gently melancholic, and I daresay the composer never returns to the grit of the first. When the theme and variations of this middle portion move towards lyrical optimism, it sounds as sweet parlor music, a little on the inconsequential side at that, and carries into the final third movement. The finale is the only time I could have imagined more propulsion or intensity, whether a choice of the Panocha or a musing from the composer.

The real gem on this recording, however, is the later Piano Quintet. The addition of winds add a lot of color, although the focus is primarily on the piano throughout.

Here, the joyful triumph is much more successful than the Piano Quartet, and having clarinet and a horn on board gives the whole opening a distinctive pastoral quality. Overall though, the work is smiles and sunshine, a quality which further endears the work to me.

The gently rocking second movement is absolutely beautiful, where Fibich adds some quirky harmonic movement, giving some distinction to its length. The Scherzo highlights the horn in its first trio, and the clarinet in the second trio, moments I relished for those instrument's greater involvement. The ending sends off the work in fine fashion, and the Panocha goose the final page's tempo excitingly.

As with their traversal of Dvorak's chamber music, the Panocha Quartet & Friends play with appreciable musical involvement. They are not woodsy and oaken akin to older quartets, but neither are they so light as to make this music sound inconsequential. The Supraphon sonics are a little thick, but backing off the volume aided some clarity.

Otherwise, there are two other recordings I know of with this exact same program - that of the Suk Quartet and the Villa Musica. Either way, the Piano Quintet should be atop anyone's wish list.

 

Listen on YouTube

 

 

Works
Piano Quartet in E minor (28.04)
Piano Quintet in D Major (35.00)

Performers
Panocha Quartet
    Jiří Panocha, violin
    Miroslav Sehnoutka, viola
    Jaroslav Kuhlan, cello
Ludmila Peterková, clarinet
Vladimíra Klánská, horn
Marián Lapšanský, piano

Label: Supraphon
Year: 2004
Total Timing: 63.31

 

 

 

While the Piano Quintet is the gem here, the Quartet is well worth hearing too, and is an interesting comparison between youth and maturity.

Aptly played by the Czech-based Panocha Quartet, and it comes in decent Supraphon sonics.