Almost unknown for years because of the general focus on Louis Vierne as an organ composer, the Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 42, of this student of Franck and Widor has been unearthed and has received at least a couple of recordings. The work is superb. For those wondering, it does resemble Vierne's organ music. It is highly chromatic, densely contrapuntal, and often built around lines that are introduced with each instrument playing a note of a large chord in sequence for a very organ-like effect. Beyond this is a highly personal quality that marries an intimacy akin to that of Janácek's chamber music to the monumental style Vierne inherited.

From the heart of Central Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century comes this penetrating, challenging, occasionally disturbing, and ever rewarding music for small ensembles. The Prague-born Prazak Quartet is of course equal to the challenge. Leos Janacek’s music for string quartet show what the genre can be. Easily mistaken for a weak, limpid subset of classical music, music for quartet a la Janacek is as sinewy and energetic as it gets.

The String Quartets, Op. 76 are among the most renowned of Joseph Haydn's sets of quartets, and carry the stamp of their maker: No other set of eighteenth-century string quartets is so diverse, or so unconcerned with the norms of the time. In the words of Haydn’s friend and contemporary Charles Burney ‘they are full of invention, fire, good taste and new effects’ – a striking description considering that Haydn had reached the respectable age of 64 when he composed the set. On a previous disc, the Chiaroscuro Quartet has recorded the first half of Op. 76, including No. 3, the celebrated ‘Emperor’ quartet. The release has won great acclaim, with the critic in Gramophone writing: ‘The Chiaroscuros' account of the remaining three Op 76 quartets can't come soon enough.’

Although there have been several fine recordings of Schumann's String Quartets, Op. 41 – those of the Gabrieli and Lark Quartet immediately come to mind – and several superb classic recordings of the works – those of the Juilliard and the Drolc and of course the magisterial Budapest immediately come to mind – but hands down, far and away, and absolutely without question the best recording of Schumann's String Quartets, Op. 41, is this one by the Quatuor Ysaÿe.

If you're after an extremely lightweight album of music for multiple bassoons, there's no question that this one will deliver. The Gürzenich Bassoon Quintet, backed by an assortment of added musicians and singers, delivers a program of arrangements, along with a few pieces originally conceived for bassoon trio or quartet. Those modest efforts by French composer Désiré Louis Corneille Dondeyne, born in 1921, are successful in raising a smile, and the arrangements of familiar pieces by Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and Jacob Gade (Tango Jalousie) are pleasant.

Very little is known of Robert de Roos (1907-1976), and as far as I can tell, this CD is the only recording of some of his music on the market today. Surprising when you consider that the output of this Dutch composer was quite impressive and included over 100 compositions in all genres and instrumental combinations. Symphonies, violin concertos, choral works, piano pieces, theatre music, and most importantly 8 string quartets came from that composer's pen. And even more astounding, is the fact that music of this caliber has been ignored or neglected until now.

The Chiaroscuro Quartet made their first appearance on BIS with acclaimed recordings of Joseph Haydn’s Sun Quartets, Op. 20, described in The Strad as ‘period-instrument performances of the utmost subtlety and refinement’. The Op. 20 quartets are widely regarded as a mile-stone in the history of the genre. When Chiaroscuros now return to Haydn, it is with his last complete set of quartets, begun in 1796 when he was 64 years old.

Beethoven's String Quartets are well known for their inventiveness. The mold of the string quartet form, established by Haydn, was shattered by Beethoven's profound expression and expansion of the "rules." Between 1999 and 2003, the renowned Pražák Quartet recorded all of the Beethoven string quartets, and this match of program and performers is one made in heaven.

Joseph Martin Kraus has made one of the most impressive comebacks of any composer belonging to an age as distant as his is to the twenty-first century. Though two centuries would pass between his death in 1792 and the eventual revival of his music, within the space of roughly a decade Kraus' 200 or so surviving compositions have practically all been recorded. Carus Verlag in Stuttgart is publishing a critical edition of Kraus' chamber music that does not involve the piano, and in connection with that publication, the newly minted Salagon Quartett has recorded five of Kraus' 10 string quartets for Carus Verlag's in-house label. Six of Kraus' quartets appeared in an early print as his Opus 1 and four others exist in manuscript; in 1992, the Joseph Martin Kraus String Quartet was founded out of the ranks of Concerto Köln to record them all for Cavalli Records.

Charles Ives’s innovations, his seemingly cluttered experiments, his use of quotation (from indigenous folk-tunes to Beethoven’s Fifth!) and his visionary ability to suggest and collide his childhood (Holidays Symphony) and look beyond ourselves (The Unanswered Question) has his detractors seeing him, at best, as eccentric. This CD brings maximum contrast from the off – first comes the 90-second Scherzo, gnarled and angular, from a European acolyte of radical Schoenberg maybe, which is followed by the hymnal opening of the First Quartet, music that became the third movement of Ives’s remarkable Fourth Symphony, and which could easily have been composed by Dvorak in America, save the harmony wouldn’t have ’slipped’ so much! This Quartet, completed in 1902, is in the conventional four movements.

The pairing of the String Quintet in G major, Op. 77, and the String Quartet in F major, Op. 96 ("American"), both major Dvorák chamber works, is a common one, but this one has several aspects setting it apart. Most distinctive is the sound from the German audiophile label MDG, working in an old abbey hall. The space is warm, clear, and perfectly sized for the music, in other words as close as you can get to actually having been there in the late 19th century when the music was first played. Moreover, the prolific Leipzig String Quartet, joined in Op. 77 by double bassist Alois Posch, delivers a superior performance of the "American" quintet that gets away from the overly consistent tone that mars so many Dvorák performances.