Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in A minor, composed in the mid-1930s, is yet another gem from the treasure trove of forgotten Price manuscripts discovered in 2009. The premiere recording was released by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective only four years ago, but this new one, by the chamber-music dream team of the Takács Quartet and pianist Marc-André Hamelin, offers a different slant, placing the work more firmly in the classical tradition of the Dvořák with which it is paired. A good example of this is the third of the four movements, which Price, as in her symphonies, casts as a juba – a dance from the plantations. In the Kaleidoscope performance, it sounds like a ragtime stomp; as played by Hamelin and the Takács it is fleeter of foot, jazzy and sparkling. The two approaches are complementary, equally worthwhile, yet if anything the Quintet as a whole sounds less self-conscious as the Takács and Hamelin have it.
Dvořák’s Quintet No 2 in A major – written in 1887, the year of Price’s birth – dates from before his move to New York and therefore predates his own wholehearted embrace of black American music. It is nicely paired with the Price here in a characterful performance in which the music’s passion is perfectly balanced with its charm.
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