Gál: Chamber Music, Vol. 3

Briggs, Sarah Beth; Kertész, Katalin; Nash, Cressida; Blakey, Nichola

These five works, from three different stages of Hans Gál’s long life (1890–1987), all show his consummate craftsmanship but are otherwise quite different in character. The passionate Piano Quartet (1914), downstream from Brahms and Dvorák, brings the grand gestures of Romanticism into the early twentieth century. The 1935 Sonatina in F major for violin and piano, recently rediscovered, and the three Sonatinas from 1956 put a premium on textural clarity and lyrical approachability; here the contrapuntal ingenuity, ceaseless thematic development, harmonic freedom and rhythmic unpredictability of Gál’s language animate the music from within. Newcastle-born pianist Sarah Beth Briggs was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition at the age of eleven and studied with Denis Matthews and Edith Fischer. Katalin Kertesz is the leader of the Kertesz Quartet, with which she recently recorded the four string quartets by the nineteenth century Czech composer heinrich Wenzel Veit. Nichola Blakey, viola, enjoys a busy freelance career, giving performances across the UK. Cressida Nash, cello, is a founding member of Musicians South West.

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