QUARTETTO DI CREMONA/LUCCHESINI,ANDREA - Saint - Saens: Piano Quintet/String Quartet (CD)

For its latest CD featuring works by Camille Saint-Sa?ns, the award-winning Quartetto di Cremona draws on sixteen years of giving concerts and making recordings. Leading Italian pianist Andrea Lucchesini joins the ensemble for the Piano Quintet: the third movement of the work is presented here in the rare version adding a double bass (ad lib.). These two chamber music works of the French composer represent crucial stages in his oeuvre: the Piano Quintet, a work of early perfection, demonstrates Saint-Sa?ns' engagement with German Romanticism, particularly with Robert Schumann and his formal idiom. The String Quartet, marking the transition into his late style, represents the first chamber piece in which Saint-Sa?ns leaves out his own instrument, the piano. Here, his version of the classical style - clear forms and a colourful expressive spectrum - becomes especially clear. Brilliance and an unerring sense of form; calm, melancholy resting and energetic gestures; romantic vocal qualities and exquisite compositional art - the contrasts characterising Saint-Sa?ns' musical idiom are perfectly realised by the Quartetto di Cremona.