01. - 03. String Quartet in E minor, op.83 [25'01]
04. - 06. Piano Quintet in A minor, op.84* [34'42]
David Owen Norris- piano*. Mistry Quartet [Jagdish Mistry & Charles Sewar- violins, Caroline Henbest- viola, Susan Monks- cello]
Argo 433 312-2 [recorded October 1990 & January 1991*; CD released 1992]
[digital download; flacs, booklet, cover and inlay scans]
Recording venue: All Saints Church, East Finchley, LondonRecording engineer: Simon Eaden; Producer: Chris Hazell
For me, although from my early teens Elgar has been a favourite composer, his Piano Quintet was one of those works which you don't 'get' for years until a new release comes along and you suddenly understand it and realise what you have been missing all those years. That recording, issued in 1997, was by the Maggini Quartet and Peter Donohoe for Naxos. Now going back I find this recording by the Mistry Quartet and David Owen Norris equally fine. Perhaps it is because both quartet featured young players' takes on the work. For this combination with the String Quartet, this would be my first choice along with the Maggini with Donohoe and, possibly,the Allegri Quartet with John Ogdon.
At the time that it first appeared in 1992, Gramophone's reviewer compared these performances very unfavourably with the recording by the Medici Quartet and John Bingham for Meridian. But I don't like the latter performance and recording very much, finding the first violin in particular too strident and insistent - much like the recent Brodsky Quartet and Martin Roscoe for Chandos which has received numerous accolades from reviewers.
Here the recorded sound is also very fine, superior to that given to the Maggini by Naxos.