Alexander Zemlinsky - Chamber Music for Strings (Schoenberg Quartet)

Information

Composer: Alexander Zemlinsky

CD1:

• (01-04) String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 4
• (05) Mailblumen blühten überall (Dehmel), for soprano & string sextet
• (06-09) String Quartet No. 2, Op. 15

CD2:

• (01-04) String Quartet No. 3, Op. 19
• (05-06) Two Movements for String Quartet
• (07-12) String Quartet No. 4 (Suite), Op. 25

Schoenberg Quartet
Janneke van der Meer, violin
Wim de Jong, violin
Henk Guittart, viola
Viola de Hoog, cello
with
Susan Narucki, soprano (CD1 5)
Jan Erik van Regteren Altena, viola (CD1 5)
Taco Kooistra, cello (CD1 5)

Date: 1993 (Op. 4 & Op. 25), 2000 (Op. 15), 2001 (Op. 19)
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN 9772

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY:  9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

While the rest of his contemporaries were finding new ways in, out of, and around tonality, Alexander Zemlinsky was sticking to his guns. This set of his string quartets shows a real (and oddly underperformed) composer at the height of his powers. Though he is mostly known as Schoenberg’s sometimes teacher, Zemlinsky was himself a composer of potent and beautiful music, and more than just an ancillary figure to the Second Viennese School. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he never discovered nor espoused a new musical aesthetic; he was into number theory just like Schoenberg or Webern but found its elements in tonal music. It is likely he was viewed as something of an anti-progressive, but this collection shows he was as skilled and musical as the rest of them.

Throughout these pieces the obvious ghost over Zemlinsky’s shoulder is Brahms, most evident in the uncharacteristically lighthearted String Quartet No. 1–an A major paean to his beloved master (and onetime champion). He lacks the impulsiveness of the older composer, the capacity to turn on a dime, but shares his sense of harmony and development, and of beauty. As Zemlinsky evolves as a composer, which is easy to chart because the pieces in this set are arranged in chronological order, the ghost continues to surface in different, more subtle ways.

The darker String Quartet No. 2 is the most Brahmsian piece on the disc, an epic of scope and motion, a large-scale symphony that happens to be scored for a chamber ensemble. Each movement feels like a complete entity unto itself, but the whole 40-plus minutes hangs together beautifully. The potent ending is nothing short of miraculous, and the group plays the exposed passages with admirable courage. From the varied (and at points funny) String Quartet No. 3 to the angular–and sometimes sinewy and sexy–No. 4, Zemlinsky never abandons his ear for the ensemble despite his ever-changing musical sensibility. The variations in the second movement of No. 3 run the gamut, illustrating the wide range of both Zemlinsky and the quartet, which plays them spot on.

The Schoenberg Quartet certainly has conviction coupled with taste; its musical choices are consistently intelligent, and the repertoire suits the players perfectly. Accompanied by the quartet, soprano Susan Narucki, one of new music’s greatest stars, is ravishing in the elegiac Maiblumen blühten überall, a setting of a poem by Richard Dehmel (the author who wrote the poem Verklärte Nacht, later to be immortalized by Schoenberg). Closely recorded instruments bring the nuances to life. If fin de siecle Vienna is at all your bag, this set is a must. [8/28/2002]

-- ClassicsToday

More reviews:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/zemlinsky-chamber-music
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Aug02/Zemlinksy_quartets.htm
http://www.classical-music.com/review/zemlinsky
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/may/24/classicalmusicandopera.shopping

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Alexander Zemlinsky (October 14, 1871, Vienna – March 15, 1942, Larchmont, New York) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher. Zemlinsky's best-known work is the Lyric Symphony, which Zemlinsky compared in a letter to his publisher to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. As a conductor, Zemlinsky was admired by, among others, Kurt Weill and Stravinsky. As a teacher, his pupils included Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans Krása and Karl Weigl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Zemlinsky

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In 2001 the Schoenberg Quartet celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. The musicians of the Quartet (Janneke van der Meer and Wim de Jong, violins; Henk Guittart, viola; Viola de Hoog, cello) share a common interest in the composers of the Second Viennese School – Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern and Alexander Zemlinsky – and the complete works for strings by these composers form the heart of their repertoire.

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