The Fine Arts Quartet and violist Gil Sharon have recorded fully sympathetic and technically exquisite performances, and their reading of the string quintet is clearly the most engaging and revelatory of this disc. Naxos provides warm and resonant sound, with reasonably close microphone placement.

Bruckner’s Quintet is an odd piece, even for this composer. The Adagio of course is beautiful, and it sounds especially lovely in this tender, flowing performance…wholly recommendable…The early (1862) String Quartet in C minor is…very well played here; but the Intermezzo (a substitute movement for the Quintet) is lovely, and the Rondo in C minor (for quartet) fills out the disc to bring the playing time up to 79-plus minutes. Self-recommending for Bruckner fans or chamber music lovers looking to fill a gap in their collections.

CD del mese. Full review

This recent Naxos release has a lot going for it…the Fine Arts Quartet (plus the just as talented Mr Sharon) is splendid in ensemble and rich and smooth in tone. It is in these respects surely at the top of the list of currently available recordings of the music. It is clean as a whistle, smooth as cream, split-second accurate in execution…The recording presents also a four-minute Intermezzo, which may have been designed as an extension of the finale of the quintet. Also at the end of the program, we are offered a six minute Rondo, which is clearly a slightly longer substitute for the rondo finale of the quartet.

Anton Brucknert néhány évtizeddel ezelott kezdte magának felfedezni a magyar közönség.

A konzervatív neveltetésu, mélyen vallásos osztrák zeneszerzo a családi hagyományt követve sokáig tanítóként képzelte el jövojét, a zeneszerzés ismereteinek elsajátításával kezdetben csak autodidakta módon foglalkozott.

Review By ,Pizzicato,March 2009


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Faithful readers may recall my high praise for the Fine Arts Quartet in a performance of Schumann quartets on Naxos last year. Naxos now gives us the Fine Arts Quartet doing the Bruckner String Quintet, accompanied by his early String Quartet (8.570788). The Quintet is one of the great chamber works of the late 19th century, famous for its sublime adagio. The Fine Arts Quartet gives it a spacious reading of three-quarters of an hour that fully reveals its glories in a grateful acoustic. If you love chamber music and have not heard this masterpiece, this is a great introduction. Full review

The Fine Arts Quartet, with Gil Sharon added in the Quintet in F, plays all this music with warmth, style and great emotional intensity: a palpable sense of joy emerging from the Quintet’s slow movement is perhaps the highlight of an altogether excellent CD. Full review