Erwin Schulhoff - String Quartets (Alma Quartet)

Information

Composer: Erwin Schulhoff

CD1:

• (01-04) String Quartet No. 1
• (05-08) String Quartet No. 2
• (09-13) 5 Pieces for String Quartet
• (14) Alla Napoletana
• (15-16) Alla marcia militaristica in modo europaico, sketches 1 & 2

CD2:

• (01-04) String Quartet No. 0 in G major, Op. 25
• (05-09) Divertimento for String Quartet, Op. 14

Alma Quartet
Marc Daniel van Biemen, violin
Benjamin Peled, violin
Jeroen Woudstra, viola
Nitzan Laster, cello

Date: 2016
Label: Gutman Records
http://www.gutmanrecords.com/cds.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

This is the first comprehensive set of the music for string quartet by a composer whose notated yet completely silent anti-war statement In futurum (not part of this particular venture) anticipated John Cage’s 4'33" by more than 30 years. It’s an extraordinary traversal, beautiful, witty, unsettling and, as so often with Erwin Schulhoff, redolent of the Roaring Twenties, soon to roar out of control into one of the darkest periods in modern history, the composer himself being one of its tragic victims. The Alma Quartet is made up of players from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, so one can expect, as a matter of course, a keen sense of musical interrelation.

The numbered quartets are perhaps the most accomplished works here, the First (1924) opening with a ferocious Presto con fuoco reminiscent of Hindemith at his most uncompromisingly precocious, then a wryly lilting Allegretto, an Allegro giocoso that toys with Bartókian dance rhythms and employs whistling harmonics, and the mysterious finale, nearly seven minutes of melancholy or agitated musing that’s not too far removed from the darker music in Prokofiev’s two quartets, the Second especially. Schulhoff’s own Second Quartet (1925) takes sustenance from the world of Smetana (the Piano Trio and The Bartered Bride), or seems to, whereas halfway through the Theme-and-variations second movement we’re thrown into a mirror-image Twenties dance music.

The Five Pieces date from 1923 and do the rounds of Vienna, Italy, the Czech Republic and Argentina, with music to match, the warmly seductive Alla tango milonga fourth movement being the most original. Bonus tracks feature three more miniatures, including a couple of military march ‘sketches’. But perhaps the most unexpected work is also the most expansive, the String Quartet ‘No 0’ in G, Op 25, Schulhoff’s first work to be published after the First World War and which runs the gamut, in stylistic terms, from Mozart through to Mahler, the latter most obviously in the Langsam second movement, which both recalls the finale of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and anticipates the film music of Alfred Newman and Max Steiner.

The set closes with a seven-minute Divertimento, lighter fare than the other works in the set, it’s true, but highly enjoyable, the second movement Cavatine (with fleetingly coincidental premonitions of Walton’s Henry V film score, ie ‘Touch her soft lips and part’) showing the Alma Quartet capable of the most seductive playing. I expect much from them in the future, maybe Hindemith, Korngold, Walton, Prokofiev, even a Bartók cycle. As to rivals in this particular repertoire, the Aviv Quartet (Naxos) are very good in the first two quartets, and the Schulhoff Quartet in the First Quartet and Five Pieces (VMS), but I reckon that as an overall first recommendation for Schulhoff quartets this set shoots straight to the top. Excellent notes by Yoel Greenberg.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erwin Schulhoff (8 June 1894 – 18 August 1942) was a Czech composer and pianist. Schulhoff's teachers teachers included Claude Debussy, Max Reger, Fritz Steinbach, and Willi Thern. Schulhoff's music went through a number of distinct stylistic periods. He was one of the first generation of classical composers to find inspiration in the rhythms of jazz. Schulhoff was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and whose works have been rarely noted or performed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schulhoff

***

Alma Quartet was formed in 2014 and quickly gained reputation as one of the most thrilling ensembles in Holland. Its members include musicians of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Their debut album: Schulhoff Complete String Quartets has received stellar international praise. The quartet has performed at prestigious concert halls including Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, as well as clubs and other venues. Alma Quartet has collaborated with diverse artists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lisa Batiashvili, Hauschka and Philip Glass.
https://www.almaquartet.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!