Download Roundup April 2010
‘This could very easily have been my Discovery of the Month. There is one other recording of the First Quintet, on the equally enterprising Silvertrust label, who also have a performance of the Second Quintet in the pipeline, but it’s hard to imagine that their versions are or will be preferable to this enterprising release from Toccata. The music is unfailingly attractive, influenced by Brahms, but with a voice of its own. The performances are persuasive… Please keep them coming, Toccata.’
Brian Wilson
MusicWeb - April 2010
‘Pianist Edouard Oganessian and the Art Vio Quartet make a wonderful team, playing with rich, weighty, and yet luminescent tone and superb ensemble balance and interplay. The recorded sound is full and spacious but not reverberant; the instruments are closely mixed but not oppressively so. The booklet offers exceptionally informative program notes, including detailed analyses of each movement in both works.
With this CD, that initial youthful thrill of discovery is back; Romantic chamber music simply doesn’t get any better than this. It is definitely a keeper for a 2010 Want List entry, and has my most urgent recommendation for you to make it a priority acquisition.’
James A Altena
Fanfare - September/October 2010
‘This is one of the most exciting of the unknowns had from Toccata. Yes, their claim that these are two masterpieces is not just promoters’ hype, they really are excellent and come across as such in these first spirited recordings’
Grahame Woolf
Musical Pointers - May 2010
RECOMMENDED BEST FIND
‘...there’s an ease and fluidity present that are Gernsheim traits… thoroughly engaging… […] The quintets receive enthusiastic but well-judged performances by Russian-trained pianist Edouard Oganessian with the Lithuanian-based Art Vio String Quartet… heartfelt music.’
Bob McQuiston
Classical Lost and Found - 10 May 2010
Want List for James A. Altena [2010]
‘the world premiere recordings of the two piano quintets of Friedrich Gernsheim, stunningly beautiful and profound pieces that not only sound startlingly like works of Brahms but are of equally immortal stature. ‘
James A Altena
Fanfare - November/December 2010
No User Reviews Found.
