FELIX DRAESEKE (1835-1913): Quintet in F for 2 Violins, Viola and 2 Cellos, Op. 77 (Breuninger Quartet w/Andreas Grünkorn [cello]), Scene for Violin and Piano, Op. 69, Quintet in B Flat for String Trio, Horn and Piano, Op. 48.
Catalogue Number: 04S040
Label: CPO
Reference: 555 107-2
Format: CD
Price: $15.98
Description: We’ve had three recordings of the horn quintet already but Draeseke’s late chamber music masterpiece, the 1901 string quintet is not otherwise available. This 32-minute work manages to balance a late Brahmsian atumnal glow, sometimes slipping into melancholy, with the vigorous and bright music of a composer half his age (even, in the scherzo, in the same movement); a contemporary described the slow movement as “an adagio that fell from heaven”. The Scene (1899) is a dramatic nine-minute work which makes use of two themes from Draeseke's unproduced opera Bertran de Born (1894). Solistenensemble Berlin.