It’s eight years now since violinist Isabelle Faust, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexander Melnikov began their series of historically informed Schumann recordings, in which each release matched one of the three concertos to one of the piano trios. Now a disc pairing Schumann’s two larger-scale chamber works with piano makes a logical continuation, for which they are joined by violinist Anne Katharina Schreiber and violist Antoine Tamestit.
One of the features of the series has been the fine-sounding period instruments that Melnikov has been able to use. This time he plays a Pleyel piano, made in Paris in 1851, on which his rhythmic articulation is superbly crisp. It perfectly counterpoints the warmly transparent sound of the gut strings, the opening exchanges of the Piano Quartet demonstrate just how satisfying the balance between them is. In the quintet too there’s an equally refreshing lightness and clarity to the textures, so that a work whose outer movements can easily become over insistent and driven when treated too forthrightly bowls along in a thoroughly exhilarating way. By any standards this is chamber music playing of the highest class; the fact that it’s performed on instruments of the period only makes it more satisfying.
