Skip to main content

String Quartets · 1

Naxos' CD packaging nearly always looks more utilitarian than appealing, though there is certainly something to be said for spelling out all the pertinent details in prominent high-contrast text on the cover. This one is a relatively recent aquisition, bought last year from on-line classical specialists Europadisc. On it are Paul Hindemith's second and third string quartets - written in 1918 and '20 respectively - performed by the Amar Quartet, a Zürich-based group whose name comes from the Quartet of which Hindemith himself was a member from 1921.

Hindemith was by all accounts an extraordinarlly versatile multi-instrumentalist, and accomplished enough as a violinist and violist that he could have elected to follow a career as a concert soloist had he so desired. As a composer he was likewise versatile in the instrumentation he wrote for. And he wrote a great deal: it's too bad that most of what I've heard of it leaves me cold. I fell for his 'Viola Sonata no. 4' after picking up an old LP recording of it. Inspired to sample more of his work, I found it frustratingly hit & miss.

There were a few pieces I enjoyed, however, such as the second Piano Sonata, and the third String Quartet. The first recording I had of the latter had been left behind in Sweden when I moved back to the UK. More recently I became curious to hear the 2nd quartet, and thought having it coupled with the 3rd seemed like a good option. I do quite like the 2nd, as it turns out, but it's still no. 3 I prefer. The performances and sound-quality here are both excellent.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

In Heat

Having acquired the soubriquet "the walrus of love", Barry White thereafter became something of a figure of fun, something that misled me (and presumably others) into disregarding his music. Only within the last few years have I begun to pay it more attention. After picking up a copy of his '74 album Can't Get Enough last summer, which I loved, I sought out some of the music by his protegés Love Unlimited. From a Discogs seller I ordered well-used copies of Under the Influence of... ('73) and In Heat ('74) for only £6.25. The only unappealing thing about In Heat is its awful title. The songs and the singing are strong; the arrangements rich & warmly enveloping. As one would expect from White, the thematic focus is firmly fixed on amatory matters. The opening number 'Move Me No Mountain' (the only one on the record not written by White) offers a refreshing rebuttal to the kind of lyrical hyperbole in songs like 'Ain't No Mountain High E...

Complete String Quartets

While the string quartets of Nikolai Yakovievich Myaskovsky (1881-1950) were all published in the Soviet era, a few of them had pre-revolutionary origins. Two quartets he wrote in 1911 and '09 while a conservatory student re-surfaced some twenty years later designated as Quartets Nos. 3 and 4.  An even earlier "schoolboy" piece was later re-worked more radically as Quartet No. 10, premiered in 1945. Myaskovsky partook of an ample share of the turmoil and tragedy of his times: he was wounded and shell-shocked after service on the front line in World War I, and his father, who had been a high-ranking military engineer, was brutally murdered by a revolutionary mob. Despite that, his music, even at its most sombre, hasn't the black bile or biting sarcasm of Shostakovich's, or of his friend Prokofiev's. Of the works collected here, in excellent early '80s performances by the Taneyev Quartet, only Quartet No. 1 has any significantly metallic tang of early S...