That Hermann Zilcher (1881-1948) has been largely ignored since his death can probably be put down to the fact that he was an anachronism. His Piano Quintet dates from 1918, the Piano Trio from seven years later (from, to be precise, the year of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Webern’s String Trio), yet if you ignore a few passages of puzzling harmony, both works might well have been written during the lifetime of Brahms, and by a close member of his circle. Dictionary references to Zilcher speak of him combining Brahmsian and ‘impressionist’ elements in his music. I suppose that may be so, but it sounds more like the work of a composer who is quite convinced of the continuing validity of Brahms’s style but who is amply original enough to do quite un-Brahmsian things at times. Unexpected things, too: the Piano Trio has only two movements, of equal length. The second is a warmly lyrical set of variations on, of all things, All Through the Night. No finale, but at the end of those variations you realise that no finale is needed.
Similarly, the Piano Quintet begins with a big and confident sonata-form movement (with three themes, the third serener and slower than the others), proceeds to a funeral march which manages to be both solemn and tranquil (it has a headlong, whirring scherzo at its centre) and then in the finale, quite charmingly, reflects on earlier material and on one of Zilcher’s songs before settling to a peaceful coda based on an old hymn-tune. Zilcher’s melodies are Brahmsian, expressively lyrical, often on the dark side, and developed in strong and resourceful counterpoint. If anyone who didn’t know All Through the Night played these two pieces in chronological order (thus ending with the variations) they might well take it to be ‘typical Zilcher’. An unusual and inventive talent, in short. Any hard-pressed record company looking for attractive out-of-the-way repertory might like to know that Zilcher wrote five symphonies, several concertos (including one for accordion) as well as operas and choral music. I can warmly recommend the present disc, which is finely played and well recorded.'