The Schubert Ensemble - Fauré: The Two Piano Quartets (2005)

Warmhearted but clear-eyed, the Schubert Ensemble of London's recordings of the Piano Quartets of Fauré are anything but French performances. Where French performers can parse their emotions down to the most infinitesimal gradation of feeling but are intellectually profoundly superficial, these English performers are intellectually clear and lucid, but their interpretations are still deeply felt. They catch the music's chromatic inflections as well as its emotional nuances, its harmonic movements along with the motions of its heart. The Schubert Ensemble achieves that rare balance of mind and heart that makes its Fauré performances extremely persuasive, perhaps even more persuasive for a non-French audience than even the best French performances. While the true Francophile might prefer the more elusive charms of the French, the less parochial listener might prefer the clean-limbed but fully felt delights of the Schubert Ensemble. Sanctuary's sound is kind to the performers, but still a bit too close.