Jonathan Biss (Piano), Elias String Quartet

Schumann & Dvorak Piano Quintets Onyx****

Pianist Jonathan Biss has a way with words. Playing these two piano quintets, he says, "invariably leaves one giddily out of breath: they are euphoria machines. If you could bottle what is in them, it might bring an end to war and pestilence; it would certainly slow the drug trade." The kind of good feelings he's talking about permeate every aspect of his performance of the Dvorak quintet with the Elias Quartet. The playing has an exceptionally sharp vitality, and the sense of the performers' own pleasure is unusually high. It was Schumann's quintet, written in 1842 by a composer still in his early 30s, which gave us the piano quintet as we know it today. There are some old- fashioned sounding touches of portamento and rubato in this performance, but the overall effective is positive, as if old wisdom is being presented with unexpectedly high energy levels. url.ie/dzi7