In a letter to a friend Chopin described Pleyel pianos as ‘the last word in perfection’. What he identified as their ‘slightly veiled sonority’ suited his style. One observer remembered the composer saying that if he was not feeling on top form, he preferred to play on an Erard, for its bright and ready-made tone. ‘But if I feel alert, ready to make my fingers work without fatigue, then I prefer a Pleyel… My fingers feel in more immediate contact with the hammers, which then translate precisely and faithfully the feeling I want to produce, the effect I want to obtain.’ The Chopin-era Pleyel was notable for its graded timbre, topped by the silvery, ethereal quality of its treble register. Chopin’s appreciation for the Pleyel sonority of pianos is written into the very fabric of his music. When he travelled to Majorca with George Sand in the winter of 1838, a Pleyel piano had to travel with them, and the composer continued to have a Pleyel grand delivered every summer, which remained until November. This was at some expense to the company, but then the relationship was mutually beneficial: while the composer was inspired by the Pleyel sound, the company did well from his patronage and his personal recommendations, and indeed Chopin and Camille Pleyel were firm friends for many years. For this mixed recital, Hubert Rutkowski plays a Pleyel instrument from 1847, during Camille’s stewardship of the firm. The most substantial works are the G minor Ballade and the B minor Scherzo, which makes so much of that glistening upper register. There is also the C sharp minor Fantaisie-Impromptu, the B flat minor Polonaise and a selection of mazurkas, nocturnes, etude and waltz. The pianist is a President of the Chopin Society in Hamburg, and has also played and recorded under the theme of Chopin’s pupils: he is among the most distinguished Chopin pianists of our day.

It was Robert Schumann who praised the Anglo-French Georges Onslow, alongside Mendelssohn, as one of the successors to the chamber music legacy of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His string quintets were intended for a market of cultivated amateurs, with parts for a second cello or bass. No. 10 in F minor, Op. 32 reflects Beethoven’s influence, its Sturm und Drang elements revealing a masterly balance between the stable and unpredictable. No. 22 in E flat major, lively and playful, offers an almost Schubertian songfulness. Of the first volume, Gramphone wrote: ‘these five players make a beguiling case for this music.’ The combination of string quartet with double bass has opened up a richness of tone and distinct soundscape that the Elan Quintet has dedicated to exploring, celebrating works by renowned composers such as Schubert, Dvorak and Cambini, working with contemporary artists in creating new works for quintet, and rediscovering neglected masterpieces by composers including Onslow and Bridge. The members of the Elan Quintet, Benjamin Scherer Quesada, Lelia Iancovici, Julia Chu-Ying Hu, Dmitri Tsirin, and Matthew Baker, formed the ensemble in Valencia in 2014 having worked with each other extensively in the opera orchestra of the Palau de les Arts as well as in masterclasses and in chamber music.

At the beginning of the Fifties Philippe Entremont appeared on the international musical stage with the enthusiasm of critics and audience. He was born in Reims - France - im 1934 from a family of musicians, in 1952 he won the the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition Award; and this fact opened him a real international career,and, after having listened him the famous conductor Eugene Ormandy cast him for performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra one of most famous Orchestra in the world. Entremont began recording his first album when he was just twenty and were unforgettable performance specially his 1955 and 1959 Chopin recordings; performance that IDIS re-present in this CD after fifty years of inexplicable silence. It is enough consider the Ballades at the beginning of the CD or the Nocturne op 15 no 1 to realize what a wonderful performer he had been when he was just twenty. He had a wonderful and perfect virtuosity combined with a gift to tell through the music still unmached.

Saint-Saens’ travels often resulted in geographically themed works, such as the Suite algerienne: this exotic musical picture postcard- full of perfumed sensuality and the brazen confidence of march themes- reflects the composer’s visits to colonial North Africa. The two suites on this recording are both structured around dance movements and were originally scored for different forces- the Suite in D major, Op. 49 for harmonium, the Suite in D minor, Op. 16 for cello and piano. The engaging Serenade, Op. 15, rarely performed with its original, exotic scoring, is heard here in an orchestral transcription.