Out March 28: Marc-André Hamelin & Takács Quartet: Dvořák & Price Quintets

By Esteban Meneses

For world-class musicianship and brilliant chamber music interplay, look no further than the collaborations between the extraordinary Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the superb Takács Quartet. Available March 28, Dvořák & Price: Piano Quintets is their fifth album together on Hyperion records. Like in the group's previous offerings, the results captured on the album are spectacular, with two works that are vital and invigorating. While Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major (1887) has long been a chamber music staple, Price's Piano Quintet in A minor is a relatively recent find — the manuscript was only discovered in 2009, about 70 years after Price wrote it and more than 50 years after her death.

Florence Price is perhaps best known for her songs, although she composed prolifically in a variety of genres and became the first Black woman to have a large-scale work played by an America orchestra — her Symphony in E minor, which was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933. Despite that success, much of her music remained unknown until the early 21st century.

Composed around 1936, the Piano Quintet in A minor was one of the unpublished manuscripts found in the attic of Price's summer house in Illinois, abandoned by the time of the 2009 discovery. You can hear distinct echoes of Dvořák in the slow movement, with its pentatonic melody unfolding to a gently swaying piano accompaniment. That's the most traditionally conceived of the work's four movements. The more rhapsodic middle section is followed by a reprise of the opening melody, which brings the piece to a calm close.

The pentatonic main subject of the first movement is stated boldly by the strings. The second subject, in major key, is characterized by its prominent "blue" note, lending the music a jazzy feel. It rises to an overwhelming climax, whose intensity is yet surpassed when the same theme returns, much later, but this time accompanied by leaping chords from the piano. No one could claim that Price's music lacks passion.

Like in Price's symphonies, the slow movement is followed by a juba, a dance associated with enslaved plantation workers. The syncopated rhythms of the dance were accomplished by the stomping and slapping of the workers, without the use of instruments. Price gives the music an irresistible jazzy feel. In the smoother and more lyrical middle section she adds sudden changes of key.

The finale is a scherzo with a hint of the scurrying rhythm of the tarantella. While it doesn't attempt to match the scope of the quintet's first two movements, it gives the work an exhilarating conclusion. Pairing this rediscovered piece with Dvořák's, his most popular chamber work with piano, makes for an unforgettable new album by the supreme quintet of players assembled here.

—Download music and supporting files HERE—