Hummel: Quintet in E Flat Op 87; Schubert: Trout Quintet The Music Collection

Schubert's Trout Quintet, with its use of double bass, is often seen as a singular work. This new disc couples it with a precursor, Hummel's Quintet in E flat, written 17 years earlier in 1802, though it's actually a quintet arrangement of Hummel's Septet, Op 74, which is believed
to have influenced Schubert's scoring. The Music Collection's recording uses an 1814 Viennese fortepiano by Johann Fritz from the Finchcocks Musical Museum in Kent, where the recording was also made. The performances, sadly, don't live up to expectations, with pinched intonation from the backwardly balanced violin of Simon Standage bringing a peculiarly hairshirt atmosphere to music that you would normally expect to cheer the spirits. url.ie/f1f2 MICHAEL DERVAN