Hummel’s Piano Quintet fuses Mozartean grace with ingenuous harmonic detours à la Schubert. Like Schubert’s better known “Trout” Quintet, Hummel’s also employs a piano-violin-viola-cello-double bass configuration. ASV’s watery resonance makes the instruments seem as if they’re being beamed in from separate black holes, converging by coincidence rather than intent. Accompanimental figurations sometimes overpower the melodies, while the frilly piano part weaves in and out of focus when it should be firmly centered. The sonics, if anything, underscore the performance’s lack of verve and lyric impulse, along with the violinist’s meow-y tone. By contrast, the less challenging (both technically and musically) E-flat Piano Trio Op. 12 gets a fleet, cohesive performance. I especially like the tart registral differentiation that characterizes the vintage 1846 Erard piano used here and in the Quintet. For the Viola Sonata (or, more accurately, the “Sonata in E-flat for piano with Accompaniment of Viola”) the musicians bring in a smaller, lighter sounding Viennese piano circa 1798. Violist Gustav Clarkson and pianist Susan Alexander-Max make the most of Hummel’s florid yet delicate interplay.
For my money, however, the strongest Hummel chamber performances in the catalog remain modern instrument versions. Check out the Parnassus Trio’s Hummel Piano Trios (MD&G), or the Schubert Ensemble’s superb recording of the Piano Quintet (Helios). A sensitive reading of the Viola Sonata with Gerard Causse accompanied by Francois-Rene Duchable was strangely coupled with Liszt’s transcription of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. If you see this out-of-print Erato release, grab it. ASV includes intelligent, insightful annotations by Joel Sachs.
