Harty: String Quartets & Piano Quintet

Acclaimed pianist Piers Lane and his fellow Australians, the Goldner String Quartet, reprise their highly successful partnership in these world-premiere recordings of the two String Quartets and Piano Quintet of Irish composer Hamilton Harty. Born in County Down, Harty (1879–1941) was a remarkable, self-taught musician who wrote in a lyrical Romantic idiom, as evidenced in these appealing works, while incorporating a modal astringency and folk-music charm that are reminiscent of Percy Grainger. In particular, the winding, pentatonic melody of the Lento of the Piano Quintet—a lusciously big-boned work worthy of Tchaikovsky—and the delightful 9/8 ‘hop jig’ of the first movement of String Quartet No 2 seem like settings of folk-melodies that have echoed for centuries around the green hills of Ireland. Intriguingly, however, they are entirely Harty’s own invention.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

CDA67927  82 minutes 46 seconds (2 discs)
‘Here, most valuably, we have three of Harty's important chamber works … Piers Lane plays immaculately with great sympathy … and the Goldner Quartet play warmly to bring out the finest quali ...
‘The Goldner String Quartet, joined in the Quintet by Piers Lane, displays just the right warmth and spirit to suit this attractive music … Hyperion's succulent recording is a peach’ (BBC Music M ...
‘Harty's melodies are appealing and graceful, the counterpoint is never overwrought … song-like passages intervene in the Scherzo [of the Second Quartet], and there is more Romantic song in the t ...