Pleyel: String Quintets, Ben. 271-273

The name Pleyel is chiefly remembered today as a piano manufacturer, but the company's founding figure Ignaz Pleyel, a former pupil of Haydn, was one of the most acclaimed composers of the late 18th century. The success of Pleyel's finely wrought twelve String Quintets, the three of which heard on this album inspired Mozart to compose his own quintets in C major and G minor, lies in their well-paced balance between crackling energy and lyrical expansiveness. These highly accomplished works are sprightly, good humoured and filled with such an intrinsic lightness and grace that they are guaranteed to delight as much now as they did centuries ago.