PAUL JUON (1872-1940): Piano Quartet, Op. 50, Rhapsody for Piano Quartet, Op. 37.

Description: First CD appearance of the op. 50 work, which dates from 1911 and is a highly personal, chamber music requiem for his first wife who died in the year of its composition. All four movements contain "souvenirs" - memories, quotations and codes - which we cannot understand but the dedicatee presumably could. From passion to tender dreaminess to the Adagio lamentoso funeral lament, this is one of music's great undiscovered personal memorials. The Rhapsodie (1907) had a literary inspiration in the Swedish novel "Gösta Berling" and is notable for its fine combination of Slavic passion and melancholy and Brahmsian style (the energy especially of its first movement vital and energizing). Philharmonisches Quartett Berlin.