Beethoven: String Quintets, Opp. 29 & 104

One of the best-kept secrets of chamber music, Beethoven’s String Quintet in C major, Op. 29, was written between the well-known ‘early’ and ‘middle’ string quartets. This strangely neglected masterpiece of startling originality is coupled here with Beethoven’s own transcription for string quintet of his early Piano Trio in C minor and the Fugue in D major, a musical curiosity written as an inducement to his publisher to make fewer printing errors. The Fine Arts Quartet has made many highly acclaimed Naxos recordings.