Mariani Klavierquartett - Idée fixe, Vol. 1 (2017)

The four internationally acclaimed virtuosos of the Mariani Piano Quartet, Philipp Hügel, Barbara Buntrock, Peter-Philipp Staemmler and Gerhard Vielhaber, play the monumental works of Fauré and Enescu to the extremes of sound and the finest dynamic nuances. As if the composers had been possessed: a single "idée fixe" underlies almost all the themes in Fauré's second piano quartet and in the first by his pupil Enescu. The late-Romantic D major quartet by the 28-year-old George Enescu subtly exhausts harmony and dynamics to the last detail – a masterpiece of polyphony. After the three piano quartets by Johannes Brahms, it was the brilliant quartets by Gabriel Fauré that gave great importance to the instrumentation. In his G minor piano quartet he formally follows German Romantic models, but Fauré nevertheless speaks his own unmistakable language from the very first note. Highly energetic passages are contrasted with elegant lyrical themes and the often modal harmonies take you into ethereal, but tonally always understandable worlds.