Alfred Schnittke - Piano Quartet; Piano Quintet; String Trio (Quatuor Molinari; Louise Bessette)

Information

Composer: Alfred Schnittke

• (01) Piano Quartet
• (02-03) String Trio
• (04-08) Piano Quintet

Louise Bessette, piano
Quatuor Molinari
Olga Ranzenhofer, violin
Frédéric Bednarz, violin
Marcin Swoboda, viola
Pierre-Alain Bouvrette, cello

Date: 2013
Label: ATMA
https://www.atmaclassique.com/en/Albums/AlbumInfo.aspx?AlbumID=1473

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Review

Second Schnittke disc from Canadian Molinari Quartet

Soon enough we sail towards the familiar, motoric minor-toned triads, curiously reminiscent of Philip Glass but actually Old Europe: Schubert, Mahler, Berg. Schnittke’s String Trio is a memory work, a 1985 commission designed to commemorate the centenary of Berg’s birth, where memories hallucinate and it transpires that the familiar and unfamiliar are interchangeable. Schnittke’s triads contrive a coming together, a universal point of reference until, thinking back, you realise all those whispered, broken chorales that preceded it were extracted from the melodic inclines of ‘Happy birthday to you’. That any group could play this music better than the Montreal-based Quatuor Molinari is inconceivable. They take a line, have an angle. ‘Happy birthday to you’ is no wry skit, no postmodern prank. Schnittke squeezes all the kindly associations away. Haunted by its own distorted presence, a faded glory caricature, it’s a bitter pill refused any artificial sweetener by Quatuor Molinari. Their perspective is stark and unnerving. Mozartian minuet figurations emerge not as comfort listening but, like all Schnittke’s markers, are in freefall disintegration.

Their performance of Schnittke’s Piano Quintet, with Canadian pianist Louise Bessette, highlights another asset, the scarred, scorched-earth temperament of their base sonic palette. Misrepresenting this piece, composed in memory of Schnittke’s mother, as a Viennese waltz dances by, as whimsy or resolved closure is too easy. Quatuor Molinari’s performance is cooled by death. Notes ache. Tonal cadences are disorientated. The quartet take Schnittke at his word and never has his Piano Quintet felt like such the masterwork. His briefer Piano Quartet (1988), assembled around fragments of Mahler, establishes the mood music and puts these other works in their aesthetic and cultural context.

-- Philip Clark, Gramophone

Another review:
https://www.thestrad.com/schnittke-piano-quartet-string-trio-piano-quintet/4749.article

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Alfred Schnittke (November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Soviet and German composer. Schnittke completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 and taught there from 1962 to 1972 Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. Later, he created a new style which has been called "polystylism", where he juxtaposed and combined music of various styles past and present. As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke

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Founded by violinist Olga Ranzenhofer in 1997, the Molinari Quartet has established itself as one of Canada’s leading string quartets. The Quartet mostly performs works from the 20th and 21st centuries repertoire for string quartet. They have commissioned and premiered several works from Canadian composers. In addition to many Canadian works, the Molinari Quartet’s repertoire includes among others, quartets by Bartók, Berg, Britten, Corigliano, Debussy, Dutilleux, Glass, Gubaidulina, Kancheli, Kurtág, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Martinu, Penderecki, Prokofiev, Ravel, Rihm, Schnittke, Schoenberg, Shostakovich and Webern.
http://quatuormolinari.qc.ca

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Louise Bessette (born June 20, 1959) is a Canadian pianist. Bessette has been renowned over her 35 year career for the excellence of her performances and for her commitment to promoting contemporary music. She has recorded a wide variety of repertoire both as a soloist and with chamber ensembles, appearing the world over with distinguished orchestras and by invitation to many first-rate festivals. Many composers, both Canadian and French, write especially for her. Bessette has been Professor of Piano at the Montreal Conservatory since 1996, and has given master classes in  Canada, Europe an Asia.
http://www.louisebessette.com

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