Arthur Lourié - String Quartets (Utrecht String Quartet)

Information

Composer: Arthur Lourié

• (01) String Quartet No. 1
• (03) String Quartet No. 2
• (04) String Quartet No. 3
• (08) Duo for violin and viola

Utrecht String Quartet

Eeva Koskinen & Katherine Routley, violins

Daniel Raiskin, viola

Sebastian Koloski, cello

Date: 2021

Label: ASV

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Review

Isolated recordings of works by the mysterious Arthur Lourie have for a while been whetting some appetites, mine certainly included, for a more comprehensive examination of him. Here it is, and it could hardly be more intriguing. Until his own music began to emerge (or to re-emerge: his pieces had some currency in the 1920s and 1930s) he was known, if at all, for having been Commissar of Music during the immediately post-revolutionary phase in Soviet Russia and, later, for being first very close to Stravinsky, then unmentionable in his presence (it seems that he may have intrigued against Stravinsky’s second wife).

There is not much of the Soviet Union (a momentary hint of Prokofiev, perhaps) and not much more of Stravinsky in these three absorbingly odd quartets. Indeed the most striking thing about them is their remarkable range of musical imagery and the sheer rapidity with which Lourie was developing over the mere three years that they span. The First Quartet is a big, half-hour piece, packed with vividly imaginative ideas which are, however, for the most part simply juxtaposed, with little or no sense of progression, let alone development. The language is basically lyrical, and becomes more expressive as the work continues, but Lourie rarely allows any key to register for long. One idea will suggest another to him, a brief unifying motive may emerge, but again not for long. At times there is an odd sort of resemblance to Janacek, but the overall impression is of a gifted composer pouring ideas on to paper and hoping that sheer urgency will hold the result together. It does, after a fashion; there is a sort of movement from rather aggressive discontinuity to longer, even graceful line. But it could, one feels, just as well have lasted twice or half as long.

The Second Quartet is a bizarre development from this. Dense textures open to reveal a demure little tune, which becomes quite jovial before plainer harmonies and a hint of Stravinskian neo-classicism lead to a return of the opening and some curious recollections of pre-classical music, to which spiky dissonances are added as an almost dismissive coda. It is all over in a single movement of eight minutes. The Third Quartet, only a year later, begins with two juxtaposed ideas, but now they are genuinely worked together into an oddly gripping two-minute (!) “Prelude”, which is followed by a grave “Chorale”, an urgently serious “Hymn” and a shadowed “Funeral March”, fraught with harmonic tension. Where all this is leading seems to be the brief, epigrammatic “Duo”, the music now pared down to essentials (two-part inventions, mostly) and clearly revealing either roots in or deep nostalgia for Russian folk music.

The fine Utrecht players are obviously fascinated by this music, and they play it for all it is worth. And how much is that? Rather a lot, I think: Lourie was obviously a provoking and imaginative creative mind, and a real original. The recordings are excellent.

-- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

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Arthur Lourié (14 May 1892 – 12 October 1966) was a significant Russian composer. He was partly self-taught, but also studied composition with Glazunov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Lourié played an important role in the earliest stages of the organization of Soviet music after the 1917 Revolution, but later went into exile in Paris (1922) then New York (1940). From 1924 to 1931 he was one of Stravinsky's most important champions. A man of very wide culture, he set poems of Sappho, Pushkin, Heine, Verlaine, Blok, Mayakovsky, Dante, classical Latin and medieval French poets. He was also a talented painter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lourié

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The Utrecht String Quartet is one of the most renowned chamber-music ensembles, known internationally for its versatile and dynamic approach. In the Netherlands, the USQ takes part in all the important chamber music series; such as those at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at Vredenburg in Utrecht and at the Frits Philips Music Centre in Eindhoven. The quartet has also been a regular guest in London since their debut in 2000. The USQ is Quartet in Residence of the Utrecht Conservatory. In addition to its extensive concert programme, the USQ also performs for radio and TV and for CD recordings.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Utrecht_String_Quartet/294879.htm

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