In its very first thematic series (released in the 1990s), eda records dedicated itself to presenting a total of six recordings in the piano quintet genre, many of which were the first to ever be recorded worldwide. The Finnish-German PIHITPUDAS KVINTETTI (Pihtipudas Piano Quintet), artistic partners of eda records in this project, is the only professional chamber ensemble to date which works exclusively in this line-up. In 2013, it celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding. Since then, the renowned formation hasn’t just focused on the main pieces in its repertoire – far from it. Instead, it has dedicated much of its activity to unearthing a wide variety of little-known and forgotten works, thus enriching the piano quintet genre with its discoveries and recordings in a highly original manner. In this third release in the Pihtipudas Kvintetti series, the ensemble turns to two protagonists of national Romanticism. Edward Elgar’s quintet is one of his final four major works, concluding with his legendary Cello Concerto Op. 85 in 1919. These works are often described as having an “autumnal” feeling. In fact, they constitute something of an alternative to the usually monumental symphonic works (both with and without choir) which Elgar had primarily composed up to the end of the 19th century and which ended up finally gaining him the (national) recognition he had longed for. The cyclical form of the work is clearly evident, yet its motif deserves a special mention. It appears three times in a row at the end of the first movement. We meet this descending four-note motif over and over in one form or another, not only over the course of this piano quintet, but also at the most thrilling point in the cello concerto, namely where Elgar returns to the slowest movement just before the conclusion, lending the work another turn to a melancholic, nearly depressing mood. He clearly treated this motif like a personal motto in his final major works. After these “autumnal works,” Elgar virtually fell silent as a composer. The piano quintet continues to fascinate listeners today; the effect of the mysterious mood at the beginning of the piece (which continues to keep critics and biographers spellbound) remains uncontested to this day. George Bernhard Shaw, whom Elgar befriended late in life, attended the private preview in the summer of 1918 and declared these suspenseful measures to be “the finest thing of its kind since Coriolan.”When Elgar and Camille Saint-Saëns met in 1913, it had already been over 50 years since the Frenchman had composed his quintet. At that time, he was organist at the Eglise de la Madeleine, and, as one might expect, wrote church music. However, the fact that, after the three symphonies he had composed in the meantime, he now presented a piano quintet, was met with scepticism and rejection. “As a young composer, he faced great difficulties at that time, since the French audience had developed an antipathy towards chamber music, and the ingenious newcomer sought to champion and maintain this lofty musical genre.” (Jules Combarieu, 1901). Both chamber music and the symphony were deemed genres of the German/Austrian tradition, and Saint-Saëns found himself on thin ice by carrying on these styles, which had come to be condemned as “Germanisms” in France. His quintet (as well as previous work) showed the influence of his musical role models in Viennese classical and early Romantic music, while the influence of Schubert and Schumann is unmistakeable. Nonetheless, he was able to create accents in his work which transcended these influences. For instance, the thematic combination of the two outer movements and attaca transition from the Andante sostenuto to the furious Scherzo (Presto) were at the very least unusual for their time. Even more so is the ad libitum expansion of the instrumentation in this movement by the addition of a contrabass to make it a sextet, an option which this recording made use of.
