Emmanuelle Bertrand, Parisii Quartet: Schubert

The Strad Issue: August 2026

Description: Much to enjoy in endlessly subtle performances

Musicians: Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello) Pascal Amoyel (piano) Parisii Quartet

Works: Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata; String Quintet; Lieder arrangements

Catalogue number: HARMONIA MUNDI HMM90276667 (2 CDS)

A dream-like quality pervades the first movement of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. The opening is floating and tonally beguiling, before the move to C major brings energy and urgency, which persists into the development. Come the coda, all passion is definitely spent, and Bertrand and Amoyel wind down the tempo a notch or two. The cellist opens the Adagio with feather-light tone before unfolding the great melody with slightly uneven legato, its otherwise serene progress ruffled by dynamic bulges. A genial saunter ushers in the Allegretto, whose D minor section has real dancing energy to it, and the later A major episode is given with a spring in its step.

After its gentle opening the String Quintet breaks into life as the staccato quavers begin. The movement has a satisfying flow, purposeful but always mellifluous, full of niceties of detail that are made without undue emphasis, until the final bars, when the second cello launches upward with startling intent. The Parisii and Bertrand imbue the Adagio with steady inward reverie and there’s fine hushed playing of the melody from the second violin as the first switches to pizzicato. The central F minor section is colourful and turbulent. The Scherzo is splendidly robust, leavened with some sprightly staccato quavers as it moves through A flat major, and the finale is a good dramatic mix of foot-stamping dynamism and delicacy.

The sonata is cocooned in a selection of song arrangements made by Bertrand and Amoyel (except for Liszt’s version of ‘Der Doppelgänger’), all poetic and beautifully crafted. But with all Schubert’s songs to choose from, could they not have had one hearty up-tempo song of someone going hunting? The recording is close and well balanced.

TIM HOMFRAY