Quintet for strings and piano, Op. 84 played by The Hirsch Quartet-Leonard Hirsch (violin) ; Henry Ball (violin) ; James Verity (viola) ; -Kathleen Moorhouse (cello) ; and Frank Merrick (piano)
That discerning amateur music critic, the late Canon Temple Gairdner, heard a private performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet soon after it was composed. The following interpretation received the approval of Elgar himself: The first movement begins with some pianissimo mutterings, like souls turning from side to sfde in mortal discomfort and numb pain ; then the first subject proper, weird chords, very eerie, with terrible appealing broken utterances from the first violin. " Spirits in prison." An inferno scene-not so much in hell as in an earthly Tartarus of some evil spell. The beautiful slow movement is clearly the redemption scene. And the finale is the resurrection of those damned ones, not to a heavenly Paradise, but rather to a second chance of a blessed, healthy, sane life in a restored world. It is most moving. ... I don't think that chamber music ever could have been heard under more exquisite conditions.'