Composers: Bartók, Korngold
Compositions: Piano quintets
Performers: Piers Lane p, Goldner String Quartet
Catalogue Number: Hyperion CDA68290

Fresh out of Budapest’s Liszt Academy, Béla Bartók completed his Piano Quintet in 1903, a number of years before he set out with Zoltán Kodály to collect the Hungarian folk music that would flavour his later work. As a result, this music hews more closely to the legacy of Liszt and Brahms than the crunching dissonances and bold rhythms we tend to associate with the composer.

It is engaging music, however, and we are certainly the better for Bartók scholar Denijs Dille having rediscovered the score...