Lars-Erik Larsson - String Quartets (Stenhammar Quartet)

Information

Composer: Lars-Erik Larsson

• (01) Senhöstblad, incl. Intimate Miniatures, Op. 20
• (07) String Quartet No. 1, Op. 31
• (10) String Quartet No. 2 'Quartetto alla serenata', Op. 44
• (13) String Quartet No. 3, Op. 65

Stenhammar Quartet
Peter Olofsson, violin
Per Öman, violin
Tony Bauer, viola
Mats Olofsson, cello

Date: 2009
Label: Daphne Records
http://www.daphne.se/lars-erik-larsson-string-quartets

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Review

The Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson wrote his three numbered string quartets between 1944 and 1975 and each one is shorter than the last. The 1960s appear to have been a  fallow period but otherwise each decade is represented by a quartet.

Before the first quartet we hear the Late Autumn Leaves, a delightful sequence of six Intimate Miniatures from 1940. These were written during one of Larsson's most prolific and rewarding periods. The music derives from a radio programme in which excerpts from Senhöstblad by Ola Hansson (1860-1925) were alternated with these brief string quartet movements. The poems chart the progress of Autumn into Winter. The music is warm-hearted, a series of smilingly intelligent confidences - a tender dialogue between lovers. There's no trace of the Schoenbergian experiments Larsson championed in his 10 two-part pieces in 1932. The writing stands in the romantic tradition established by Stenhammar's six quartets but in even more delicate leafy autumn hues. This is beautiful spare Nordic music; its coolness being balanced with a spring in the step. The light melancholy of the earlier movements becomes more sharply poignant in the final Adagio.

The First Quartet is more obliquely expressed. While the medium might well encourage it the writing here is evidently the work of a precisian. It bristles with busy detail - not always playing to the lyrical heart of the medium. There are times when this sounds like a compact between Mozart and Reger - at least in the first and third movements. The Second Quartet yearns with a more candidly revealed heart. It was dedicate to the composer Sten Broman. In its meshing of gears and tiers it recalls Britten of the same period (mid 1950s) but with some of Nielsen's objectivity and a chilly Bergian overlay. Yet there is tenderness also in the long wistful Andante Tranquillo before the blitzingly active Britten-reminiscent Allegro Vivace. The ten minute long three movement Third Quartet was Larsson's last significant work. For all that it is sterner than the Second it retains the propensities of the earlier works but with a brighter candlepower. The singing heart though is still present as we can hear from the witty and touching end of the first movement.

The Stenhammar Quartet play throughout with articulate communicative devotion and emotional precision throughout. The presentation is clean, thorough – all that you might wish.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

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Lars-Erik Larsson (15 May 1908 – 27 December 1986) was a Swedish composer. Larsson studied with Ellberg at the Stockholm Conservatory, and with Alban Berg and Fritz Reuter in Vienna and Leipzig. He then worked for Swedish Radio and taught at the Stockholm Conservatory and Uppsala University. His style as a composer is eclectic, ranging from the late Romantic to techniques derived from Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-note system. Larsson wrote for the theatre, cinema and broadcasting, in addition to the more traditional forms of symphony, concerto, chamber and vocal music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars-Erik_Larsson

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The Stenhammar Quartet, which consists of Peter Olofsson, Per Öman (violins), Tony Bauer (viola) and Mats Olofsson (cello), was founded in 1995 and is considered as one of the most interesting and respected quartets in Scandinavia today. Their main emphasis of the repertoire is on Swedish music. The quartet have commissioned and premiered quartets by Mats Larsson-Gothe, Per Mårtensson, Mika Pelo, Viktoria Borisova-Ollas, etc. Their recordings for labels Daphne, Phono Suecia, BIS and cpo have received critical acclaim both in Sweden and internationally, such as Swedish Grammy Awards nominations.
http://www.stenhammarquartet.com/the-quartet-english/

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