Eduard Franck - String Quintets (Christiane Edinger; etc.)

Information

Composer: Eduard Franck

• (01) String Quintet in E minor, Op. 15
• (05) String Quintet in C major, Op. 51

Christiane Edinger & Tassilo Kaiser, violins

Rainer Kimstedt & Uwe Martin Haiberg, violas

Katharina Maechler, cello

Date: 2011

Label: Audite

https://audite.de/en/product/SACD/92578-eduard_franck_string_quintets.html

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Review

Audite’s laudable exploration of the chamber music of Eduard Franck (1817–93) – previous releases have focused on his string quartets, sextets, violin sonatas and piano trios – continues with the two string quintets, which are both scored for the Mozartian ensemble of two violins, two violas and cello. The first dates from the mid-1840s, and while the influence of Franck’s teacher Mendelssohn is never very far away (particularly the latter’s penchant for hyperactive accompaniments), this expertly scored work is ideally pitched at the burgeoning middle class’s insatiable desire for amateur chamber music in the home. The Second Quintet emerged a quarter of a century later and is stylistically more independent and assured, including an unmistakably Schubertian emotional ambivalence most evident in the theme and variations finale.

More than usual, complemented by Audite’s lucidly natural engineering (the effect is stunningly realistic on SACD), this fine ensemble relishes the enhanced richness of Franck’s alto and baritone registers. Although the melodic interest is almost invariably focused on the violins, one is struck continually by the enhanced presence of the violas and cello. These remarkably assured and adept performances are brimful of confidence, although I would have occasionally welcomed a greater sense of surging insistence when the music takes flight.

-- Julian Haylock, The Strad

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Eduard Franck (5 October 1817 – 1 December 1893) was a German composer, pianist and music pedagogue. He studied with Felix Mendelssohn as a private student in Düsseldorf and Leipzig. As a talented pianist, he embarked upon a dual career as a concert artist and teacher for more than four decades during the course of which he held many positions. Although highly regarded as both a teacher and performer, Franck, as a composer, never achieved the public recognition of his better known contemporaries such as Mendelssohn, Schumann or Liszt. His chamber music is generally considered amongst his finest compositions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Franck

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Christiane Edinger (born 20 March 1945 in Potsdam) is a German violinist. She studied at the Berlin University of the Arts with Vittorio Brero (1960-64), with Joseph Fuchs at the Juilliard School (1965-67), and in 1963/64, she also attended courses given by Nathan Milstein in Gstaad. Edinger made her debut as a concert violinist at the Berliner Festspiele in 1962, then her Carnegie Hall debut in 1966. This was followed by concert tours to various European countries, the USA, the Soviet Union, South America, India, Africa, China and Japan. From 1994 until her retirement, Edinger was professor at the Lübeck Academy of Music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_Edinger

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