Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga - String Quartets (Guarneri Quartet)

Information

Composer: Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

• (01-04) String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
• (05-08) String Quartet No. 2 in A major
• (09-12) String Quartet No. 3 in E flat major

Guarneri Quartet
Arnold Steinhardt, violin
John Dalley, violin
Michael Tree, viola
David Soyer, cello

Recording Date: 1995
Release Date: 2011
Label: Newton Classics (original recorded by Philips)

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Review

Philips’s three commentators here, in their different languages, have a high old time unearthing influences on these quartets – besides Mozart and Schubert, other composers variously cited are Haydn, Mendelssohn (! – definitely avant la lettre), Boccherini, Rossini, Mehul and Cherubini. And their views of the work show curious divergences: for one the Third Quartet is “the most accomplished”, for another “the least solid and homogeneous” (though “the most original” – and so I should think, with that mysterious storm in the third movement).

Poor Arriaga, to be picked over like this! As a 17-year-old composer (remember that he was to die before reaching his twentieth birthday) nothing could be more natural than that he should still be absorbing the musical currents around him; but an injustice is being done to him if the inference is that he was not developing a voice of his own. There can be no doubt of the Guarneri’s wholehearted involvement in, and eloquent presentation of, these remarkable quartets – their enjoyment of No. 2’s set of variations, for example, is evident and infectious – but I can’t avoid the impression that they are sometimes treating them with greater weight and intensity – perhaps with less sense of spontaneity – than is appropriate. This is particularly true of the First Quartet, the dramatic Mozartian D minor character of whose first movement leads them into a vehemence that the French-trained Arriaga would probably not have intended: there is too much pressure, too little grace, in the Adagio’s tender cantilena, and the accompanimental rhythm in the finale is lumpy rather than springy. On the other hand, they bring out the jota character of its third movement, and their light-footed scherzando Minuet of No. 2 is delightful. (What a wonderfully fresh opening there is to this particular quartet!)

So, despite some reservations – one or two small flaws of intonation may be forgiven in view of the overall spirit and enthusiasm – this is an attractive issue. But I wish Philips had gagged whichever of the ensemble it is who grunts so audibly and so frequently.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: ****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Jan12/Arriaga_qts_8802074.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Arriaga-Complete-Quartets-Guarneri-Quartet/dp/B0053FRFT6

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Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (January 27, 1806 – January 17, 1826) was a Spanish Basque composer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young. They also shared the same first and second baptismal names; and they shared the same birthday, January 27 (fifty years apart). The amount of Arriaga's music that has survived to the present day is quite small. His greatest works are the three string quartets, which contain notably Spanish ethnic rhythmic and melodic elements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Cris%C3%B3stomo_Arriaga

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The Guarneri Quartet was an American string quartet founded in 1964 at the Marlboro Music School and Festival. It was admired for its rich, warm, complex tone and its bold, dramatic interpretations. The group’s extensive touring and recording activities, coupled with its outreach efforts to engage audiences, contributed to the rapid growth in the popularity of chamber music during the 1970s and 1980s. The quartet is notable for its longevity: the group performed for 45 years with only one personnel change, when cellist David Soyer retired in 2001 and was replaced by his student Peter Wiley. The Guarneri Quartet disbanded in 2009.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarneri_Quartet

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