Unlike the Formosa Quartet’s recording of the Gernsheim Piano Quintet No. 2, neither Brahms the composer nor his immortal Piano Quintet need an introduction; suffice it to say that his art embodies the very soul of late German Romanticism. Thus in this masterpiece’s venerable, familiar presence, one cannot help but be amazed by the truth of its ageless effect on us. Ask any string quartet player or pianist, and they will likely tell you that the piece is among their top five most-performed. But one never tires of it, so sincere is its sensibility, and every single time one reaches the end of the Andante, un poco adagio, one is forcibly struck by its beauty. The human heart is what ultimately connects us to one another, and in Brahms beats one of the sweetest and most extraordinary hearts in music.
The Foromsa Quartet Performing Brahms LIVE
Gernsheim • Brahms: Piano Quintets
Formosa Quartet & Pianist Reiko Uchida
Friedrich Gernsheim was a late-Romantic German composer and pedagogue whom his friend Johannes Brahms acknowledged as a master composer. Gernsheim’s prolific, multi-genre output includes a remarkable body of chamber music, of which the Piano Quintet No. 2 is a shining example. Pairing it here with Brahms’ immortal Piano Quintet in F Minor enables the attentive listener to compare the two composers’ kindred late-romantic voices while savoring Gernsheim’s unique facility that Brahms so admired.
