Elgar: String Quartet, Op. 83 / Piano Quintet, Op. 84

CDElgar’s large-scale rhetorical works are now familiar to most, but his chamber music deserves to be better known. These expansive three-movement pieces are late works, elegiac and deeply personal. The Quartet centers on a tenderly intimate slow movement. Flanking it are a tersely argued opening Allegro moderato and a Finale that has the fire and scale of some of his orchestral pieces. The Quintet, rhetorical and dramatic, is perhaps more immediately accessible. It, too, has a central Adagio movement of aching beauty. Ian Brown’s muscular pianism doesn’t lack for introspection when needed, and the four women of the Sorrel Quartet play both pieces with technical aplomb, stylish command, and the warmth that brings them to life. Choosing between this version, the Maggini Quartet on Naxos, and the classic EMI recordings with John Ogden in the Quintet is difficult; all capture the Elgarian essence of this fine music. –Dan Davis

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