Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet - Schubert & Cramer: Piano Quintets (2008)

The Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet is a period-instrument ensemble dedicated to music composed for the combination of instruments made famous (but not devised) by Schubert for his ‘Trout’ Quintet: evergreen as that work is, the sublime masterpiece in its genre, it was preceded and followed by a number of other such works by composers including Hummel (after whom the ensemble is named) and Cramer, ‘Glorious John’ Cramer who was so celebrated a fixture of London musical life and its beau-monde in the early decades of the 19th century. Cramer’s Piano Quintet was composed in 1832, five years after Schubert’s death, and its first performance featured the legendary bassist Domenico Dragonetti. Its grand, urbane manner reflects the surroundings of its composition just as the countryside of Upper Austria does the ‘Trout’ Quintet, which was written in the small town of Steyr, lodging with a local lawyer and apparently availing himself of the charms of at least some of the eight young ladies also in the house.