Harty: String Quartets Nos 1 and 2; Piano Quintet – review

Hamilton Harty 's string quartets and piano quintet are early works, his Opp 1, 5 and 12 respectively. They were composed in the early 1900s, straddling Harty's move from his native Ireland to London, where he quickly established a career first as an accompanist and then as a conductor. The quartets are fluent if unremarkable works, indebted mostly to Mendelssohn's chamber music, though with a melodic charm of their own, but the piano quintet is much more impressive. It's a real discovery: a big, bold statement full of striking melodic ideas and intriguing harmonic shifts, which adds Brahms and Dvořák into Harty's stylistic mix, together with Tchaikovsky in some passages. The performance by Piers Lane and the Goldner Quartet makes it even more engaging. Lane strikes a nice balance between assertiveness and delicacy in the piano writing, with the Goldner's refinement and beauty of tone providing the perfect foil; their accounts of Op 1 and Op 4 are equally poised and immaculate.