This is a Recording

For my money, Antonín Dvořák's 'String Quintet No. 2 in G major' (Op. 77) is among the best of his lesser-known works. It was composed in 1875, a few years before the 'Slavonic Dances' became his first major hit, launching him into the compositional big-time. It wasn't published until 1888, by which time his international reputation was well-established. Unusually for a late-19th-century quintet, it's scored for two violins, viola, cello, and double bass. It's performed here by the Dvořák Quartet augmented by bassist František Pošta. I have it on a 1967 Supraphon LP: a re-issue of a recording first released five years earlier, so Discogs informs me. I think it may have been one of the several classical albums I've bought from the Oxfam shop in Thornbury. Originally in five movements, it was published without a slow 'Intermezzo' that would have been its second. The current second movement ('Scherzo. Allegro vivace') is probably the mos...

In my original blogging days, I would occasionally run giveaways to offload unwanted books or CDs to whomever claimed them. Sometimes the recipients would offer to send me something in return. It was in this way that, ca. 2007, a Catalan correspondent sent me Influencías: a CD of perfomances by the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals. The CD begins with Maurice Ravel's renowned string quartet: I hadn't known the piece before receiving this disc, but I was sold on it by this fresh & bright performance. Next is a quartet called 'Vistes al Mar' by the Catalan composer Eduardo Toldrá. Its evocative maritime movements are prefaced by recitations of poems by Joan Maragall, a Catalan author whose works directly inspired the piece. Lastly there's an arrangement of Joaquín Turina's atmospheric 'Oración del Torero', originally composed for a lute quartet. I'm on the fence about the cover photo: it's a well-composed picture & not a bad idea, but with 2...

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...

George Onslow was an odd-man-out among 19th-century French composers. Born into wealth and privilege, the grandson of an English Earl, he had no need to follow the operatic gravy train, with string quartets (of which he wrote 36) and string quintets (there are another 32 of those) forming the bulk of his compositional output. The present disc contains his 28th, 29th and 30th quartets, in compelling performances by the Quatuor Diotima. These quartets were written toward the end of a prolifically-creative period for Onslow in the years 1829-35. Viviane Niaux, in her informative booklet notes, ascribes this to the composer's having heard performances of two of Beethoven's late quartets for the first time in 1828, at their Paris première. Like many of his contemporaries, Onslow was at once "fascinated and disconcerted", and, although he considered them "extravagant", they seem to have been powerfully inspirational. A further spur to creativity may have been his ...

Luigi Boccherini wrote in excess of a hundred string quintets, nearly a hundred string quartets, and sixty-odd string trios. Not to mention all his piano trios, piano quintets, flute quintets, guitar quintets and assorted sonatas; nor the dozen cello concertos & thirty symphonies. He wasn't shy about reusing and recycling sections of earlier works in later ones, but even so, he turned out a prodigious quantity of music, which makes its consistently high quality all the more impressive. The present disc includes four of his last string trios, written in Madrid in 1796. The default string trio line-up is violin, viola and cello, but these pieces were composed for two violins and cello, played here by the group La Real Cámera comprising Emilio Moreno and Enrico Gatti (violins) plus Wouter Möller (cello). Moreno is also responsible for the booklet notes in which he characterises trios written for this instrumentation as "a difficult, arid and obsolete form ... a remnant of the...

Classical albums often have unimaginative and unwieldy titles merely listing the pieces they contain. This one labours under the title String Quartet No. 3, Two Pieces For String Octet, Piano Quintet , these all being compositions by Dmitri Shostakvich, performed here by the Borodin Quartet, who are joined by the Prokofiev Quartet for the 'Two Pieces' and by pianist Sviatoslav Richter for the Quintet. I had heard this version of the Quintet via a download some time ago, and had subsequently bought a different performance of it on CD which hadn't quite hit the spot in the same way, hence my eventually buying this disc. I'd been slightly reluctant to acquire it as I already owned a performace of the String Quartet No. 3 by The Borodin Quartet, and, shelf-space being limited, I prefer not to have duplicates. On the other hand, the perfomance I already had was recorded in the '60s by the Quartet's original line-up, whereas this one dates from 1983, by which time Mik...

Somewhere along the way I acquired a disproportionate fondness for Czech classical music, a predilection which has led me to pick up several LPs on the Czech (or, formerly, Czechoslovak) record label Supraphon. Currently I have about a dozen of them. This release of Bedřich Smetana's two string quartets, appropriately performed by Smetana Quartet, seems to have first been issued in 1964, mine being a later (possibly early '70s) export version with English, Russian, German and French text on the back. The text explains that the first quartet, subtitled 'From My Life', and written in 1876, is a kind of autobiography in music, and quotes the composer's own remarks about how the first movement is a statement of "the artistic leanings of my young days" and "romantic feelings music, love and life in general"; that the second depicts his carefree youth as a travelling musician; the third concerns his first love for the woman who would become his wife; a...

Johann Sebastian Bach is widely revered as the best of all composers, and is frequently praised in the most extravagant terms. His second Partita for solo violin, and, in particular, the long 'Chaconne' which closes it, has further been singled out as one of his profoundest creations. In the unlikely event of this blog attracting any readers (even the bots have moved on elsewhere, it seems), they will find further confirmation here - if any were needed - that my taste is defective and not to be trusted: I don't much care for J.S. Bach's music. The BWV 1004 'Chaconne' is a partial exception to that rule: I have found it absorbing and impressive on the occasions I've listened to it, but those occasions have been few. I bought this 10" disc of a mid-'50s mono recording of it by Viennese fiddler Wolfgang Schneiderhan nearly twenty years ago, but have only seldom blown the dust off it. Other Bach pieces I don't mind include his Concerto for Two Violi...

Or, to give its full title, Barbirolli Conducts English String Music , the music in question being Edward Elgar's 'Introduction and Allegro for Strings' & 'Serenade in E minor'; and Ralph Vaughan-Williams' 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' & 'Fantasia on "Greensleeves"'. It's a 1970 reissue of a recording made seven years earlier where Sir John Barbirolli conducted the Sinfonia of London. A stiffly formal note on the back cover warns that "this record is intended for use only on special sterophonic reproducers. If you are doubtful of the suitablity of your reproducer for playing this record, we recommend you to consult your record dealer." When I play this record on my stereophonic reproducer, it's nearly always just Side 2 - the one with the Vaughan-Williams pieces - that I put on. There are a few of Elgar's works I enjoy, but those included here have yet to grab me. On the other hand, Vaughan-William...

Only within the last five years have I begun to appreciate the delights of Haydn's music, and even now I know very little of it beyond his later string quartets. It had formerly struck me as ungraspably remote music, but after acquiring, and properly listening to, a couple of '60s quartet recordings on vinyl, its finer qualities belatedly started to sink in. With a few quartets obtained piecemeal in that way from nearby charity shops, I thought it would be good to get a larger set of them on CD, and, to that end, bought the Op 71, 74 & 76 quartets in early '90s performances by the Kodály Quartet on four discs for a few pounds via ebay. I was perfectly happy with those excellent recordings except, with each disc being in its own separate jewel case, they took up what I felt was a disproportionate expanse of my limited shelf-space. When I read the praise of the recent recordings by the London Haydn Quartet on the Hyperion label, with the same pieces available as two doubl...