EMR CD005 | DETAILS
  EMR CD005
   
  Norman O’Neill: CHAMBER WORKS FOR STRINGS AND PIANO
  The Bridge Quartet | Michael Dussek (pf)
   
  Released 5 June 2012 | EAN 5 060263 500049
The Bridge Quartet’s performance of Norman O'Neill’s Piano Quintet at the 2011 Festival thrilled audiences and we received repeated requests for us to issue this work on disc. It forms the centrepiece of EMR CD005, on which the Bridge Quartet is joined by pianist Michael Dussek in a programme also featuring the Two String Quartet Movements, the Scherzo for String Quartet, the Piano Trio Movement, and the Variations on ‘Pretty Polly Oliver’ for piano trio.
TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Norman O’Neill (1875–1934)
STRING QUARTET IN C MAJOR (World Première recording)
   
1. I. Andante serioso – Allegro  
2. II. Poco adagio  
3. III. Allegro con brio (Scherzo 1909)  
     
PIANO TRIO IN ONE MOVEMENT, op.32 (World Première recording)    
4. Andante – Allegro con fuoco – Andante con moto – Allegro
scherzando – Allegro con fuoco
 
       
PIANO QUINTET IN E MINOR (World Première recording)    
5. I. Moderato – Allegro moderato  
6. II. Molto allegro – Tranquillo – Molto allegro  
7. III. ROMANCE: Andante sentimento  
8. IV. FINALE: Poco adagio – Allegro con brio  
       
THEME AND VARIATIONS FOR PIANO TRIO on the popular song ‘Polly Oliver’
(World Première recording)
9. THEMA: Andante – VARIATION I: Andante – VARIATION II: Andante –
VARIATION III: Allegro – VARIATION IV: Allegro – VARIATION V: Poco
adagio – VARIATION VI: Allegro con fuoco – VARIATION VII: Andante
 
REVIEWS
Beautifully shaped by Benjamin Frith... Beguiling sounds, graced by the tawny richness and unexaggerated line of Richard Jenkinson’s cello playing... The sense of purpose and sureness of line of Ian Venables’ music is pure oxygen.
EMR CD31 | BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Exquisitely rewarding... Ravishing accounts.
EMR CD029 | CHOIR AND ORGAN
This is music of great beauty and integrity and the performances fully do it justice. It would be criminal to let it pass you by.

EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW

The Bridge Quartet approach these pieces with a sympathetic and insightful warmth, and confirm their ambassadorial credentials for British chamber music. A lovely, radiant disc.
EMR CD025 | Gramophone
Duncan Honeybourne’s playing is astonishingly affectionate, yet never saccharine... Honeybourne plays with suave confidence.
EMR CD024 | INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Rupert Marshall-Luck is an ideal interpreter: generously but not effusively lyrical; agile and athletic... The warm, folk-song like slow movement is at times almost painfully beautiful, with a shimmering pastoral central section... Marshall-Luck is, again, indefatigable and keenly picks up on the work’s melancholic strain.  Finely recorded and with comprehensive booklet notes, this is a must for fans of 20th-century English repertoire.
EMR CD023 | THE STRAD