(++++) SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

Hummel: Piano Quintets in D minor, Op. 74, and E-flat minor, Op. 87. Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet (Riko Fukuda, fortepiano; Franc Polman, violin; Elisabeth Smalt, viola; Jan Insinger, cello; Pieter Smithuijsen, double bass). Brilliant Classics. $19.99.

Hovhaness: Mountain Fantasies for Piano. Haskell Small, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     It is common knowledge among music lovers that Schubert’s piano quintet in A, D. 667, was inspired by his earlier song Die Forelle (“The Trout”), with the fourth of the work’s five movements being a set of variations on that lied. Much less known, however, is where Schubert got the idea for a quintet using piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass – a highly unusual instrumental complement. The answer is that Schubert’s 1819 quintet was directly inspired by Hummel’s Op. 74 of 1816 – which in turn is Hummel’s transcription for piano quintet of his own septet (with the same opus number) for the even-more-unusual mixture of piano, flute, oboe, horn, viola, cello and double bass. This sort of cross-pollination among composers was by no means rare in Hummel’s and Schubert’s time, but the intricacies and interstices of the relationships are now largely unknown. Indeed, the excellence of much of Hummel’s music remains underappreciated: he lacks the perfect poise of Mozart, with whom he studied, and the intense drive of Beethoven, with whom he had both a friendship and a rivalry; thus, as a kind of transitional figure in music, he is seen as neither here nor there stylistically and receives less attention and fewer performances than the quality of his work justifies. Thankfully, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet (named for Hummel’s middle name) fully appreciates Hummel’s style and the value of his music, and its performance of the quintet version of Op. 74 is exemplary. As often in Hummel, the Op. 74 quintet is front-weighted: it is an extended work, with 15 of its 38 minutes in the first movement. The performers do an excellent job of giving that large first movement weight without heaviness, and they show a fine understanding of just how much of a transitional composer Hummel was: the quintet’s second movement is marked Menuetto o scherzo, as if Hummel is determined to keep one foot in the era of Haydn and Mozart and the other in the time of Beethoven and beyond. The third of Hummel’s four movements is a theme and variations – just as the fourth of Schubert’s five contains his variations on Die Forelle – and is well and convincingly constructed, while the well-paced finale brings Hummel’s quintet to a thoroughly suitable close. Performing on a fortepiano roughly of Hummel’s time (a Pleyel from 1842) and on instruments of historic provenance with gut strings, the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet gives about as authentic a reading of Hummel’s D minor quintet as possible – and the sound of the fortepiano mixes so well with that of the double bass that the instrumentation clearly reflects Hummel’s expertise in chamber music. This quintet is paired with the Op. 87 quintet, which has unusual elements of its own. Originally written around 1802, it was apparently revised in the year it was published, 1822 – there must have been a revision, because pianos in 1802 did not have sufficient range to play Hummel’s Op. 87. Furthermore, although the quintet was published as being in E-flat, it is actually in the much more difficult E-flat minor, a key that has six flats. Here too the first movement is the longest (10 minutes out of the quintet’s 23); but here the overall mood never becomes serious – the third movement, Largo, is only two minutes long and essentially serves as an introduction to the effectively dramatic Allegro agitato conclusion. These are not new performances but re-releases: Op. 74 was recorded in 2009, Op. 87 in 2006. The disc is very much worth having for anyone interested in authentic-sounding, beautifully played chamber music that is somewhat off the beaten track. The CD does have a slapdash quality about it, though: Riko Fukuda’s name is spelled four different ways, correctly at one point but also “Fuduka,” “Fukudo” and “Fufuka.” That may not trouble her but should certainly embarrass Brilliant Classics.

     Musical inspirations flow from many sources, not just from other composers or from one’s own earlier works. Among the major inspirations for Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) were mountains: probably his best-known piece is “Mysterious Mountain,” his Symphony No. 2. His mountain-inspired piano music is much less familiar, which makes an MSR Classics CD featuring pianist Haskell Small all the more worthwhile. The pieces heard here span more than four decades of Hovhaness’ career – although they are not arranged chronologically – and are mostly drawn from his reactions to mountainous terrain. The disc opens with the three-movement Blue Job Mountain Sonata (1979), whose brooding first movement establishes the overall mood, which the short finale uplifts only modestly. Next is Prospect Hill Sonata (1980), also in three movements, which is lighter in sound and has a generally pleasant, pastoral feeling throughout – its bright finale is especially engaging. The four-movement Mt. Katahdin Sonata (1987) follows – it is a largely serious, even somber work, although the very short third-movement Jhala of Larch Trees lightens matters a bit (Hovhaness also uses the titular evocation of a Hindustani musical form in one movement of Blue Job Mountain Sonata). The three sonatas are followed by works in other forms. Pastoral No. 1 (1952) is quite dark, even gloomy, for a work bearing this title. Hymn for Mt. Chocorua (1982) is hymnlike in its use of chordal structure although not in any particularly spiritual way. The lightest work on the CD is also the earliest: 12 Armenian Folk Songs (1943). Hovhaness, who was born in Armenia, here offers very short pieces (11 of the 12 last a minute or less) that sound lightly and with delicacy on the piano and proceed with pleasant, mostly regular rhythms. The CD concludes with Farewell to the Mountains (1946), a pleasantly bouncy encore with some jazz inflections and attractive rhythmic variation. Small, better known as a composer than a pianist, made these recordings in 2013 and 2014, and they sound quite good, played with attentiveness and without overstated feeling. Indeed, the works’ comparatively reserved nature is what makes this a (+++) disc: Small does what he can to put the music across effectively, but whatever Hovhaness’ lofty inspirations for most of these pieces may have been, the works themselves are on the earthbound side.