Search - Thuille, Luisi, Chantily Quintet :: Thuille: Sextet Op. 6; Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 20

Thuille's Best Chamber Music Works

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 09/01/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The all-but-forgotten Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) was a classmate of Richard Strauss's and remained his friend until his early death. He succeeded his teacher, Josef Rheinberger, as professor of composition at the Royal Music School in Munich. And although he was early influenced by Liszt and Wagner, his Sextet sounds more like Brahms. Thuille was a master of memorable melody and Brahmsian formal construction. Thuille had French ancestry and there is more than a soupçon of Gallic wit in this music, particularly in the first and third movements. I have loved the Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet ever since I got a limited edition pressing of a performance by members of the Boston Symphony more than twenty years ago. I have also liked a recording by the Ensemble Wien-Berlin and pianist Stefan Vladar which is, as far as I know, no longer available. There is also a fine recording of the Stuttgart Wind Quintet with pianist Dennis Russell Davies, nla. This present performance is by pianist Gianluca Luisi and yet another German group, the Chantily Quintet whose home, fittingly, is Munich where they are principals in the Munich Philharmonic. I quite like this new performance and believe it stands alongside those earlier recordings. Indeed, I think they catch the French insouciance of the music better than the other ensembles.



The Piano Quintet, played here by Luisi and the Gigli Quartet (named, oddly enough, for Golden Age tenor Beniamino Gigli), is a more mature work, Thuille's Op. 20, with somewhat more chromatic harmonies and more complex construction. The work's counterpoint and harmonic complexity are particularly skillful. It is actually Thuille's second piano quintet; the first is a student work which has been recorded along with the second quintet by Oliver Triendl and the Vogler Quartet Ludwig Thuille: Piano Quintets. I slightly prefer Triendl's and the Vogler's recording which seems more natural and spontaneous, hence my four-star rating. But I am pleased that these two works, Thuille's best chamber works, are for the first time together on one budget-priced CD in fine performances.



Scott Morrison"