Béla Bartók; Ernő Dohnányi - Piano Quartets (Notos Quartett)

Information

Composer: Béla Bartók; Ernő Dohnányi; Zoltán Kodály

• (01) Dohnányi - Piano Quartet No. 1 in F sharp minor
• (05) Kodaly - Intermezzo for String Trio
• (06) Bartók - Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 20

Notos Quartett
Sindri Lederer, violin
Andrea Burger, viola
Philip Graham, cello
Antonia Köster, piano

Date: 2017
Label: RCA

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Review

If this is indeed the first commercial recording of a substantial but lost chamber work by Bartók, one’s instinctive reaction is at first excitement, and then suspicion. Bartók’s hardly neglected, after all. Whatever the exact provenance of this Piano Quartet in C minor (and don’t look to RCA’s booklet-notes for any meaningful help on that score), if it hasn’t been recorded until now, you can’t help wondering why.

The answer might perhaps be that it’s juvenilia, composed in 1898 by a school-age composer who’d clearly been listening to more Brahms than was entirely healthy. And that’s what you get: a vigorous, robustly constructed four-movement work covered with Brahms’s fingerprints and even a couple of near-quotes.

Only in a few places will you find foretastes of Bartók’s mature musical imagination: the violin’s stratospheric entries in the Adagio, that same movement’s curious two-part structure and a fiery, episodic finale, which, for all their fervour and commitment, the Notos Quartet can’t quite make hang together. Apparently they played from the composer’s manuscript; and despite a recorded balance that’s sometimes a little fuzzy in the middle, there’s a real immediacy about their playing. Whatever its merits, it’s hard to imagine this piece being championed with more conviction.

Still, if you listened to this disc sight unseen, you’d probably guess that Dohnányi’s lyrical, bittersweet F sharp minor Piano Quartet – also written by a teenager – was the real harbinger of genius here. It’s more inventive, more shapely, with an unmistakable tang of paprika. The Notos Quartet play it with poetry and verve, and the piece itself is sufficiently rare for this recording to count as something of an achievement. An enjoyably dancelike account of Kodály’s Intermezzo for string trio serves (in the group’s word) as a ‘sorbet’ – and completes a well-played and enterprising debut disc from this excellent young German ensemble.

-- Richard Bratby, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/23/notos-quartett-hungarian-treasures-cd-review-bartok
https://www.allmusic.com/album/hungarian-treasures-bart%C3%B3k-dohn%C3%A1nyi-kod%C3%A1ly-mw0003020111

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Béla Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and an ethnomusicologist. Bartók is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Bartók's music reflects two trends that dramatically changed the sound of music in the 20th century: the breakdown of the diatonic system of harmony, and the revival of nationalism as a source for musical inspiration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k

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Ernő Dohnányi (July 27, 1877 – February 9, 1960) was a Hungarian conductor, composer and pianist. He was director of the Budapest Academy of Music from 1934 to 1943. Dohnányi's compositional style was personal, but very conservative; his music largely subscribes to the Neoromantic idiom. Although he used elements of Hungarian folk music, Dohnányi is not considered a nationalist composer. As a conductor, he was among the first to conduct Bartók's more accessible music and make it more popular. As a teacher, his pupils included Géza Anda, Annie Fischer, Georg Solti and Georges Cziffra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern%C5%91_Dohn%C3%A1nyi

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Since its foundation in 2007 the Notos quartet has won six first prizes as well as numerous special prizes at international competitions. In 2017 the quartet was also awarded the ECHO Klassik as newcomer of the year. The ensemble's debut album, "Hungarian Treasures" on Sony Classical/RCA, includes the world premiere recording of Béla Bartók’s piano quartet, a rediscovery for which the ensemble receives international acclaim. The quartet lists Alban Berg Quartet, Mandelring Quartet as well as Uwe-Martin Haiberg, Clemens Hagen, Menahem Pressler and András Schiff as their mentors.
http://www.notosquartett.de/en

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