FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH FÉTIS (1784-1871): Grand Sextet for Piano Four Hands and String Quartet, Sonatas for Piano Four Hands in F, D and G, String Quintet No. 1.

Description: The quintet was recorded in 1972 and the other works in 1984 - which makes it all the more bizarre that this CD reissue had to be mastered from LPs since the original tapes were lost (no German armies blasting through the northern European plain in those years!). The sextet (1818) is of very Beethoven-ian quality while the four-hand sonatas (1819) are of lesser intent but the late quintet (1859) can be compared to the late works of Spohr in its backward look to Classicism while obviously having been composed in the high Romantic period. Dominique Cornil, Olivier Gardon (piano), Véronique Bogaerts, François Chamberlan, Michel Colin, André Martin (violins), Paul De Clerck, Guy Decleire, Louis Logie (violas), Hans Mannes, Edmond Baert (cello).