Various Composers - American Quintets (Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective)

Information

• (01) Amy Beach - Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 67
• (04) Samuel Barber - Dover Beach, Op. 3
• (05) Florence Price - Piano Quintet in A Minor

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Matthew Rose, bass

Elena Urioste, violin

Melissa White, violin

Rosalind Ventris, viola

Laura van der Heijden, cello

Tom Poster, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020224

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Review

If the aim of a debut is to captivate, showcase talent, lend insight into a curatorial perspective and leave the listener curious about future potential, then the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s first album certainly delivers. How refreshing – and timely – to highlight the work of women composers experiencing a renaissance.

The album opens with Amy Beach’s arresting and grandiose yet wistful Quintet, Op 67. They attack this repertoire with sensitivity and authority. The ebb and flow and light and shade they achieve through tempo flexibility and texture are great to hear. The sinuous and haunting string melodies in various guises by violinists Elena Urioste and Melissa White, viola player Rosalind Ventris and cellist Laura van der Heijden, and Tom Poster’s dramatic and carefully gauged piano passages, affirm their commitment to this repertoire.

Although I’m loath to mention Beach’s male confrères, doing so confirms the success she initially achieved. A virtuoso pianist, Beach performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a first-rate band conducted among others by the celebrated Nikisch. She toured this Quintet with the renowned Kneisel Quartet – friends of Brahms, who had quite recently premiered Dvořák’s American Quartet. This early quartet sound world of the Kneisel, and the more often-recorded Flonzaleys who followed them, formed part of Beach’s context.

In Barber’s setting of Arnold’s poem Dover Beach, the Kaleidoscope create beautiful sonic landscapes, angsty and tumultuous, supporting the mellifluous and masterful bass tones of Matthew Rose. Predecessors in this role include Fischer-Dieskau and the composer himself. Barber, a trained baritone, sang on the 1935 premiere recording – it’s a fantastic performance and primary source. With their sensitively managed portamentos and rubato, the Collective have absorbed something of this atmosphere, which I wholeheartedly applaud.

Finally comes the premiere recording of Florence Price’s less-known Quintet. Price was the first African American woman composer to gain recognition; amazingly, a cache of her manuscripts was discovered in an abandoned attic in 2009. The warm, gutsy sound of the album gets grittier here, and there is no lack of flair, with the recitative-like opening, flights of virtuosity and dark ombres sometimes echoing Rachmaninov and Gershwin.

I’d be delighted to listen to more Beach and Price performed with this courage, erudition and aplomb, and keenly anticipate the Collective’s next offering.

-- Amy Blier-Carruthers, Gramophone

More reviews:
MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Jul/American-quintets-CHAN20224.htm

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/chamber/american-quintets/

https://www.thestrad.com/reviews/kaleidoscope-chamber-collective-american-quintets/13174.article

https://theclassicreview.com/album-reviews/review-american-quintets-beach-price-barber-kaleidoscope-chamber-collective/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/american-quintets-amy-beach-florence-price-samuel-barber-mw0003514052

https://www.wtju.net/american-quintets-kaleidoscope-chamber-collective-debut/

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The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective was formed in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste.

https://www.kaleidoscopecc.com/

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