Marion Walker - Fire Walker (2023) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Quintet, Op. 39: I. Tema con variazioni
02. Quintet, Op. 39: II. Andante energico
03. Quintet, Op. 39: III. Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio
04. Quintet, Op. 39: IV. Adagio pesante
05. Quintet, Op. 39: V. Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto
06. Quintet, Op. 39: VI. Andantino
07. Bælþræk, Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola and Cello
08. Bælsiþ, Concerto for Oboe and Sinfonietta

Prokofiev's chamber music output is relatively modest—a handful of sonatas, two string quartets, an overture of Hebrew themes for clarinet, string quartet and piano, as well as this quintet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and bass.

The quintet, with its peculiar instrumentation and its tonal and rhythmic playfulness— described by some as “successfully circusy”—is a prime example of Prokofiev as an ironist and humorist, a superb craftsman who elegantly juggles his material and produces surprisingly sonorous, tonal and rhythmic kaleidoscopes. The work is one of his most radical, but the crassness of the elements is placated by the lightness of the form—like a kind of polite insolence. As a repatriated Soviet citizen, entrenched in the paranoia of Stalinist cultural life, Prokofiev washed his hands of the Parisian atmosphere, where complex patterns and dissonances were the accepted thing, and which fostered my predilection for complex thinking. The subsequent Soviet phase of his production is characterized substantially by the more sincere style favoured by the regime, yet without the elegance and certainty of style being compromised. Expat works such as the oboe quintet lead one to ponder the tantalising, yet ultimately futile question, what if later Soviet composers had also been allowed to spend some of their formative years in Paris?

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