Marc-André Hamelin's New Album with the Takács Quartet Reviewed on The Guardian
For world-class musicianship and brilliant chamber music interplay, look no further than the collaborations between the extraordinary Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the superb Takács Quartet. Dvořák & Price: Piano Quintets is their fifth album together on Hyperion records; it was released in March 2025. Like in the group's previous offerings, the results captured on the album are spectacular, with two works that are vital and invigorating. It is a “chamber-music dream team,” writes Erica Jeal for The Guardian.
While Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major (1887) has long been a chamber music staple, Price's Piano Quintet in A minor is a relatively recent find — the manuscript was only discovered in 2009, about 70 years after Price wrote it and more than 50 years after her death. Jeal singles out the third movement, which Price, as in her symphonies, casts as a juba — a dance from the plantations. “[As] played by Hamelin and the Takács it is fleeter of foot, jazzy and sparkling,” she says.
Marc-André Hamelin (Sim Cannety)