Pettman Ensemble: Pleyel

The Strad Issue: August 2026

Description: String quintets from a contemporary of Mozart intrigue

Musicians: Pettman Ensemble

Works: Pleyel: String Quintets: E flat major B271, G minor B272, C major B273

Catalogue number: NAXOS 8574492

Ignaz Pleyel is best known nowadays as the founder of a French piano brand that bears his name, or as a student of Haydn who later, in London, found himself competing with his teacher as the press whipped up an imagined rivalry between them. Nevertheless, there’s a wealth of music to be discovered.

These three quintets are the first of twelve he composed in Strasbourg in the 1780s. They were printed in 1785 and it appears that Mozart was familiar with them: the keys of the three works match Mozart’s C major K515 and G minor K516 and a sketch he made of a further quintet in E flat major, all in 1787. Both composers used the same scoring – string quartet plus second viola – but Pleyel’s quintets are in three movements rather than Mozart’s four. Like the latter, Pleyel rejoices in the richness that the augmented chamber unit offers him. You wouldn’t mistake them for Mozart, though: while the language is common to both, the accent is quite distinct.

Opening movements have a symphonic tautness balanced with melodic lyricism; slow movements are no more than brief interludes; and finales in the two major-key works are genial rondos. The G minor draws back from the turbulence Mozart mines from this tonality – at least until its dark-hued finale. The Pettman Ensemble is clearly committed to Pleyel, giving attractive, rich-toned performances that lack only the last degree of refinement.

DAVID THREASHER