I Musicanti- Piano Quintets (PREORDER)

SOMM Recordings' fruitful collaboration with Leon Bosch, renowned double bass player and director of I Musicanti, has recently produced a group of world premiere recordings, which consist of four delightful and interestingly disparate British Piano Quintets. The two quintets by Percy Godfrey (1899-1945) and Richard Walthew (1872-1951) fall within a post-Romantic idiom reminiscent of Rachmaninoff's music, while those of John McCabe (1939-2015) and Ivor Hodgson (b.1959) share terrific rhythmic vitality and modern harmonies whilst remaining entirely accessible. Although the music of Percy Godfrey is little known these days, he received two notable awards around the turn of the last century. In 1902, he won a competition for a Coronation March for King Edward VII and, in 1899, he was awarded the prize for a newly-announced chamber music competition. That winning piece was his Piano Quintet in E flat major heard on this release. The quintet by Richard Walthew is titled Phantasy Quintet. Wal