It is good to have a new recording from the pianist Bernard d’Ascoli‚ an inspirational artist whose playing on disc is regularly marked by a winning spontaneity. This disc offers a most attractive mixture with two of the major Schumann chamber works (both products of the magic year 1842) linked to two shorter piano works. This is a programme such as you might find in the concerts organised in Leicester and elsewhere by the viola player of the Schidlof Quartet‚ Graham Oppenheimer. In the Piano Quintet it is d’Ascoli who leads the ensemble‚ maybe controversially‚ in the first movement. Though in the score Schumann specifies no speed changes‚ he does build into his writing a strong contrast between the opening eight­bar motif‚ sharply chordal‚ and the much more lyrical follow­up‚ something of a Florestan­Eusebius contrast. Almost inevitably there will be an easing of tempo for the lyrical sections‚ and d’Ascoli unashamedly encourages that‚ maybe excessively but also persuasively thanks to his spontaneity. What is more important is the freshness and ease of the interchanges between players‚ with a relaxed warmth in the playing‚ not least in the finale‚ marked Allegro non troppo‚ which is not overdriven. There are similar qualities in d’Ascoli’s performances of the Arabeske and Blumenstück‚ with textures fresh and clean. The String Quartet brings another refined performance with plenty of light and shade‚ starting with a slow introduction where the Schidlof bring out the mysterious quality of its writing that echoes late Beethoven. Equally‚ the opening theme of the slow movement suggests that Schumann was unconsciously thinking of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Not that there is anything heavy in the Schidlof performance‚ with sprung rhythms‚ clean‚ crisp textures‚ and a nice contrast between the 6/8 rhythms which mark both the first two movements. The recording‚ made in the Blackheath Concert Halls‚ is finely focused within a helpful acoustic.