It
may come as a surprise
to many that the sixteen minutes of Stravinsky's music on this
disc is the sum total of his output for string quartet: just the
three bite-sized miniatures, and without even a properly-titled
essay called "String Quartet" in this genre to his name. Karol
Szymanowski, on the other hand, still hovers on the fringes of
prominence and most audiences, I suspect, wouldn't know or even
care that he does have two string quartets, along with a handful
of violin-piano works and a lost piano trio in his quiver of
chamber music.
Szymanowski is very typical of many
20th century composers in that he continually sought an
individual musical identity which hitherto had been amalgamated
from extant influences: the Germanic Classical and Romantic
schools, the burgeoning French "impressionists", the
experimental styles of atonalism, microtonics and aleatorics
(alongside the likes of Scriabin), as well as the
turn-of-the-century nationalism which was erumpent in so much of
Europe.
In
this respect, his two string quartets were written ten years
apart in 1917 and 1927, and bookend a number of significant
works in-between them: the opera King Roger of 1924, a
Piano Concerto (his only one), the poetic Stabat Mater
and more than half of the 130 or so folk song settings of Polish
origins. Szymanowski was not particularly prolific, but his
miscegenetic origins gave rise to richly exotic themes and
textures in his music, assimilating in his own inimitable way
the styles from other composers: shades of Debussy and Ravel in
his first String Quartet, and in the second Quartet, a
Mahlerian-flavoured Schezando and a Lento assai
that looks forward to Bartok's six quartets.
(above: the Goldner String Quartet)
These quartets have not been very
well represented in the catalogue, either: the Varsovia Quartet
on Olympia (OCD 328) and the Carmina Quartet on Denon (CO 79462)
most readily come to mind - and, er, that's about it. Now at
least there's also a Naxos alternative: the Goldner String
Quartet (taking their name from Richard Goldner, the founder of
Musica Viva Australia, the biggest modern-day presenter of
chamber music concerts in Australia) may not (yet) be household
names in the quartet circuit outside Australia, but they are
nonetheless formidable exponents of the repertoire. At the
Adelaide Festival 2000, they presented a ten-concert survey of
20th century quartets (each concert devoted to a decade, from
the 1900's to the 1990's), and more recently in September 2004,
they gave the complete Beethoven string quartets - the summit of
the genre - over three weeks at the Verbruggen Hall of the
Sydney Conservatory.
They
dispatch the first
String Quartet
with rolled-up sleeves and top
buttons undone, full of steely, sinewy ideas, giving a masterly
argument of Szymanowski's earnest, and sometimes sombre,
writing, reaching a jubilant, springing characterisation of the
final movement which is full of verve and brings to mind shades
of Milhaud. There is some profound insights to be had here as
they paint with a broad emotional palette and on a sonic canvas
writ large, the original sound-world of Szymanowski (left),
bringing to mind the mesmeric character of the First Violin
Concerto which the composer had just completed the year before.
The second Quartet gets an even more
expressive outing: a highly refined "impressions" of the
Impressionists Debussy and Ravel, but with heavier chirascuro
and darker shadows, relentless
ostinatos
and an otherworldly nostalgia. Szymanowski's brittle writing
often places the line above the stave, which leaves musicians
exposed on a high-wire, but the Goldner players transcend these
technical difficulties with scarcely a hint of difficulty. The
Tatric influence in the closing
Lento
of the second Quartet is highlighted with plenty of detail and
nuance, and the Goldners make some magic with this "lost world"
of Szymanowski's.
The Goldners performed the first
Szymanowski Quartet at Adelaide 2000 in the "1910's" program,
along with Stravinsky's
Three Pieces
for string quartet. Obviously Stravinsky was never much amiable
to this genre - just sixteen minutes of music in all! - but here
they make ideal fillers against the Szymanowskis to bring this
disc to the lower end of respectability in terms of playing
time. As in the preceding works, the Goldner String Quartet
negotiate the cryptic, not to say sparse, sensibilities of
Stravinsky with exquisitely-wrought performances. A very
rewarding album which will repay repeated listenings, and we
should hope to see more of the Goldners on disc in future - the
Janacek or Nielsen string quartets, perhaps?
