Ahmet Adnan Saygun - String Quartets (Quatuor Danel)

Information

Composer: Ahmet Adnan Saygun

CD1:

• (01) String Quartet No. 1
• (05) String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35

CD2:

• (01) String Quartet No. 3, Op. 43
• (04) String Quartet No. 4, Op. 77 (fragment)

Quatuor Danel
Marc Danel, violin
Gilles Millet, violin
Tony Nys, viola
Guy Danel, cello

Date: 2006
Label: cpo

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Review

Having surveyed Ahmed Adnan Saygun's symphonies, CPO turns to the 20th-century Turkish master's four string quartets. The "wonderfully evocative folk melos" my colleague David Hurwitz referred to in the symphonies organically interfaces with Saygun's terse chromatic language and perennially fresh string textures. The first two quartets (from 1947 and 1958) stand out on account of their expressive breadth and communicative immediacy. I love the First Quartet's Adagio, with its long, overlapping legato lines that are anchored by the gentlest pizzicato pokes. The Allegretto is a minuet whose sweet sadness is conveyed by the string writing's remarkable delicacy and refinement.

Saygun's palette had toughened up by the time of the Second Quartet, with its neo-Bartókian col legno effects and petulant trills that penetrate like hornet stings. The finale might be described as a portrait of churning dissonant chords, book-ended by slow, rhapsodic episodes.

CPO's annotator Patricia Gläfcke barely disguises her ambiguity about the Third Quartet's use of repetition, and I'll admit that the first two movements reveal Saygun's style in a starker, more foreboding manner that's not easy to love. Although Saygun did not live to finish his Fourth and final quartet, the surviving two movements hint at a new playfulness in his writing, borne out by the Animato's scampering repartee, sudden silences, and unpredictable thematic turns (zoom in on three minutes into the movement and you'll hear what I'm describing).

The Quatuor Danel takes great pains not only to play accurately, but also to find the most suitable colors, vibratos, bowings, and articulations. Listen to how gorgeously the players contour Saygun's frequent unison melodies, and notice the technical ease and expressive richness that informs rapid chromatic passages, or the effortless control and tonal balance the Danels bring to the Third Quartet's sustained, chorale-like sequences in the first movement. Tempos are judged to perfection; in fact, I prefer the Danel Quartet's quicker pace and airy finesse in the aforementioned First Quartet Adagio to the slower, less fluid Anatolian Quartet on Hungaroton. Listeners in search of overlooked yet significant 20th-century string quartet fare in world-class performances should seriously consider this splendidly engineered co-production with West German Radio. [4/7/2006]

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/saygun-complete-string-quartets
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Apr06/Saygun_Quartets_9999232.htm
https://www.allmusic.com/album/saygun-complete-string-quartets-mw0001857811

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Ahmet Adnan Saygun (7 September 1907 – 6 January 1991) was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music. One of a group of composers known as the Turkish Five who pioneered western classical music in Turkey, his works show a mastery of Western musical practice, while also incorporating traditional Turkish folk songs and culture. His extensive output includes five symphonies, five operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, viola and cello, and a wide range of chamber and choral works. Saygun was known not only as a composer but also as a scholar, an ethnomusicologist, and a teacher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Adnan_Saygun

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Quatuor Danel is a French string quartet which was founded in June 1991. The quartet trained under the guidance of the Amadeus Quartet, the Borodin Quartet, Feodor Druzhinin of the Beethoven Quartet, and also with Pierre Penassou and Walter Levin of the LaSalle Quartet. The Danel Quartet's repertoire includes classical as well as contemporary music. They are specialized in the Russian repertoire; they have recorded the quartets by Shostakovich and Weinberg (world premiere). Since 2005, the Danel Quartet is "quartet in residence" at the University of Manchester, and since 2016, at Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatuor_Danel
http://www.quatuordanel.eu/

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