Op. 34-Bärenreiter?s scholarly-critical edition of Brahms? popular Quintet in F minor for piano and strings contains everything a cutting edge Urtext edition is meant to offer. It presents a solid and well researched musical text based on Brahms? autograph as well as the first edition and draws on the autograph of the two-piano version (composed six years later) for purposes of comparison. The edition also contains a discussion of the work?s historical context and performance practice as well as a comprehensive Critical Commentary with an evaluation of the sources and alternative readings.The editor Daniel Boomhower deals with the conflicting readings between the stringparts in the autograph engraver?s copy and those found in small print in the first published score as well as in the separate parts for that edition. Relevant readings from the two-piano version appear in the appendix of the Critical Commentary.New Bärenreiter Urtext editionExhaustive study of conflicting readingsNotes on performance practice (Eng/Ger)Informative Foreword (Eng/Ger) and Critical Commentary (Eng)

Rachel Stott's Serendipity And Household for Piano Quintet.Serendipity And Household Objects grew out of various sound experiments I made together with violin and viola pupils I was teaching at the time. The idea was to find some extended timbral possibilities of the children’s instruments using only such objects as one might reasonably expect to find around the house a comb or ruler empty yoghurt pot cutlery pieces of paper chopsticks rather along the lines of the television programme ‘the great egg race’ which I used to enjoy as a child.The word ‘serendipty’ (‘the happy knack of making unexpected and delightful discoveries by accident’ Cassell Concise Dictionary) describes the way the finding of the sounds led to musical ideas.A curious point some of the sounds actually work better on basic level children’s instruments than professional quality ones. Don’t waste this piece on a strad…or vice versa. - Rachel StottCommissioned by Jean Horsfall