A very fresh, a summer album: Hummel & Bertini from Sestetto Classico on MDG

Hummel: Quintet, Bertini: Grand Sextuor; Sestetto Classico; MDG
Reviewed by Andreas Rey (22 September 2025)

Two large-scale chamber works from the fringes of the repertoire from composers sitting between Mozart and Beethoven in fresh, idiomatic performances from a fine ensemble

A celebrated virtuoso pianist and composer who influenced a generation of Romantic composers, Johann Nepomuk Hummel is known for a handful of works and for his links to Mozart and Beethoven. This disc on MDG from Sestetto Classico and pianist Hiroko Maruko explores further with Hummel's Quintet Op. 87 for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass, a work that inspired Schubert to write his Trout Quintet. This is paired with a work by Hummel's French contemporary, Henri Jérôme Bertini whose performances were compared to those of Hummel. Here we hear Bertini's Grand Sextuor Op. 90 for piano, two violins, viola, cello and double bass.

This is a very fresh, a summer album, so to speak, strongly influenced by Mozart and Beethoven in the first quintet, and by Boccherini in the second. An album to listen to as you would drink a rosé wine in the South of France. The quality of the Sestetto Classico'a playing, without heaviness and overly abrupt stops, and Hiroko Maruko's crystalline piano, blending beautifully with the quintet for a most charming fluidity, give this recording all its charm. 

This disc begins with Hummel's Quintet Op. 87, allowing the listeners to move beyond his too well-known trumpet concerto and discover this composer through one of his chamber music works. A student of Mozart, he embraced his teacher's style and language. Thus, like his master, the student's style remains fluid, natural, and fresh. It is also strongly influenced by the concerto form, with the sextet here being almost a kind of chamber piano concerto, with the strings forming a unified ensemble responding to the solo piano. The amateur will recognize certain phrases that are more abrupt, more Beethovenian, so to speak, than those of Mozart, thus showing that between the two geniuses that were Mozart and Beethoven, there was room for an honest, humble, and valuable composer: Hummel. 

The second work on this disc is a sextet by French composer Henri Jerome Bertini. This great sextet, Opus 90, which retains the same clarity of playing, is constructed with a less unified architecture than Mozart's, reminiscent of Boccherini or Haydn, creating a dialogue between the strings, such as the violins with the cello and viola, as well as the piano. The language is also heavier than in Hummel, although still very fluid. This album is refreshingly, introducing listeners to works that may be less well known but are nonetheless worthy of attention.

Reviewed by Andreas Rey

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) - Quintet Op. 87 [17.35]
Henri Jérôme Bertini (1798-1876) - Grand Sextuor Op. 90 [29.39]
Sestetto Classico (Gerhard Miessen, Laurentius Bonitz, Bertram Bantz, Eric Plumettaz, Ichiro Noda, Hiroko Maruko)
MDG 102 2371-2 1CD [47.42]