Schumann: Piano Quintet Op 44 & Piano Quartet Op 47 – review

Having scarcely ventured into chamber music writing before, Schumann suddenly composed three string quartets, a piano quartet and a piano quintet in one year: 1842. While the piano quartet has great vitality and charm, the quintet is on a different level of achievement: a fiendish pianistic challenge as well as a masterpiece of the genre. The Jerusalem Quartet, who last month won their third BBC Music magazine award for a recent Mozart recording , are at the peak of their career, still youthful yet playing with the wisdom of 20 years' experience. In the Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov they have a collaborator of rare musical intelligence as well as virtuosity. Another award contender? I guess so.