Piano Quintet No 1
Night string quartet
Paysages (Landscapes) string quartet
Two Pieces string quartet
Piano Quintet No 2

Serenity and meditation contrast with melancholy and savagery; primitive passions yield to poignancy, nobility and tenderness in Bloch’s accomplished chamber music. Five substantial pieces are recorded here, dating from different stages of the composer’s career and demonstrating both the programmatic elements of his writing and his Impressionistic side. Bloch’s deep affinity for string instruments and the piano is also given ample expression in these works, all of which deserve a permanent place in the chamber music repertoire. They are given performances of great vitality and sensitivity by the Goldner String Quartet and Piers Lane.

GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE; BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE DISC OF THE MONTH; PIANIST'S CHOICE (PIANIST MAGAZINE)

'A fabulous CD this, easily the best recording of Bloch's chamber music I've heard in years … The first Quintet, a product of the early 1920s, seems to combine the acerbic drive of middle-period Bartók with the kind of veiled sensuality one associates more with Chausson or Fauré. Bloch's use of quarter-tones, aimed at intensifying the work's already heightened emotional atmosphere, requires careful handling, and the Goldner Quartet make them sound both musically striking and entirely natural. If you need a sampling-point, try the finale's opening, where the sense of urgency will hold you riveted … The Quintet's quiet coda is rapturously beautiful and the blending of voices between Piers Lane and the Goldners simply could not be bettered … The music is truly wonderful, the playing entirely sympathetic and the sound perfectly balanced' (Gramophone)

'[Piano Quintet no 1] ranks among the finest in the genre … A work of astonishing immediacy, at once lyrical and aggressive, that takes you on a lurching emotional journey before achieving stability in the most serene C major imaginable … The performances, by the Goldner String Quartet and pianist Piers Lane, are tremendously authoritative in their combination of technical daring and expressive power' (The Guardian *****)

'This Hyperion release is not only perfectly compiled … but also brings, with the opening of the First Piano Quintet, music that is particularly striking and which also becomes compulsive … The middle movement is an atmospheric Andante mistico, melodic and spacious, strangely beautiful and full of Eastern promise, exotic and ethereal, the writing skilful and imaginative … A powerful and enveloping whole that is both intoxicating yet underpinned with logic … Piers Lane (a sensitive chamber music player whose concerto-soloist confidence and personality is a boon) and the Goldner String Quartet (a group of real distinction) give superb performances, deeply committed, vividly declaring without sacrificing good balance, attention to detail and a wide dynamic range, qualities brought forth by the excellent recording' (International Record Review)

'In his two finely crafted piano quintets, we find sonata form mingling with quarter-tones and an identifiably Jewish lyricism: very engaging, especially in these performances from Lane and the Goldner String Quartet' (Financial Times)

'This new beautifully balanced recording in which Piers Lane partners the Australian-based Goldner Quartet has the edge in almost every respect … In the First Quintet Lane and the Goldners manage to communicate the urgency and immediacy of Bloch's musical argument with far greater fervour than their Czech colleagues on the Praga Digitalis release … Most attractive are the three Paysages, depicting landscapes as disparate as the frozen Arctic wastes, the slopes of the Alps and the energetic exotic rhythms of the South Pacific islands in vivid colours' (BBC Music Magazine)

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Recording details: February 2007; Menuhin Hall, Yehudi Menuhin School, Stoke d'Abernon, Cobham, Surrey, United Kingdom; Produced by Amanda Hurton; Engineered by Ben Connellan; Release date: November 2007;