Jones: String Quartet nr. 1 & nr. 2

The last few days I've been listening off the beaten path with some quartets by Welsh composer Daniel Jones. I didn't know him at all but spotted his name in a Musicweb review where his quartets were mentioned in the same breadth as Simpson's and Maconchy's. However, the Jones set is even more difficult to find than the latter two. A few years back there was a Chandos issue of the full set of 8 quartets, but that has disappeared from the catalogue (rare for Chandos) and I found it hard to locate a set. It was expensive to boot. But after having listened to the first two quartets, I'm certainly happy to have invested as the music is of a very high standard.

Jones (1912-1993) was a rather weird guy: an outsider, anti-establishment figure. Giles Easterbrook in his excellent booklet notes finds him 'quixotic and often cantankerous'. He was a modest, private person, who was almost diffident about 'being a composer'. It was a job as many others. But he aspired to a high level of artistry nevertheless, leading him to destroy a significant part of his work when his career was already fairly well advanced. Apart from his musical abilities he was also gifted in languages, which secured him a post as cryptographer and decoder of Russian, Rumanian and Japanese at Betchley Park during WWII.

This analytic, puzzle-oriented intellectual temperament characterises his music. Again Easterbrook: " The music of Daniel Jones is not about landscape and language; it is about thought. It often smiles and often charms and delights, but his agenda are always organization of material, structure and the integrity of thought." Technically he was somewhat of an innovator as he developed an idiosyncratic system to work with metrical complexity - "different, irregular time signatures juxtaposed in exactly repeating sequences to provide subtle variations of stress in a phrase or melody laid over (or through) them." At the end of his life he was even invited to come to the Donaueschingen festival to talk about his work (which he wasn't able to).

However, his work does not sound particularly innovatory. It's a very odd and difficult to pin down mix, in fact. The compositional rigour underlying the music is certainly clear from a first hearing. But there is lyricism too. There's a sobriety there that speaks of a highly personal and disciplined mind. This and some distinctive harmonic echoes (evoking a sense of space and otherwordliness) brought to mind the music of Edmund Rubbra (roughly a contemporary, 1901-1986). The mix of rigour, terseness and a steely kind of passion also remind me of Elisabeth Maconchy (1907-1994). Simpson is different. Whilst also an intellectualist, he seems to lean more towards a Scandinavian-oriented, clean and cool brand of heroism (with Nielsen as a leading example, of course). Jones, for all his earnestness, seems to me to be more lapidary and frivolous, indeed less concerned about striking the pose of the promethean composer. A final connection, maybe, is the music of Humphrey Searle. A pupil of Webern (similar to Hartmann) he assimilated something of the serial rigour in his otherwise full-blooded symphonies. So, there seems to be something distinctively British about Jones' work, but not in the provincial sense (of a Frank Bridge, for example) as at the same time it also aspires to some kind of universality.

Im going to quote Easterbrook's sympathetic notes again on the first two quartets:

"String Quartet nr. 1 stands in isolation from the others in the cycle, its cosmopolitan voice speaking of pre-war Europe and pre-war travels. It is perhaps the closest he came to a 'normal' 20th century quartet, tight but not claustrophobic, thematically cross-referenced without being obsessive. These are all Jones's hallmarks, but the personality of the composer stubbornly remains in the background. Not so the personality of the medium, which is masterfully exploited, the part-writing confident, bordering on bravura, melodically teasing, harmonically pungent, though not acrid, rhythmically inventive, texturally alive, and constantly resolving into satisfying, surprising cadences. Complex metres are used extensively in the outer movements, by implication in the second, and not at all in the third. With String Quartet nr. 2, and from then onwards, we are in altogether different regions of the imagination. In the decade that separated the first two quartets there is a fundamental change. Its importance is intellectual, not stylistic, though the change in language is clearly noticeable. Rather it reflects an altered attitude to the act of composition. No longer is he the explorer cutting his way through the jungle, but the writer that comes 'after Shakespeare' or, in his case, 'after Haydn'. The Second String Quartet with its balancing outer movements makes very extensive use of complex metres with a seamlessness that integrates fully into the flow, the opening and closing palindromes of the scherzo flanking an extraordinarily free-sounding, but meticulously organized lyrical middle section."

Soon we're going to have a break, from work and from listening to quartets. We'll pick up the thread very soon.

Shostakovich: String Quartet nr. 10/Symphony for Strings op. 118a

I've known Shostakovich's op. 118 (1964) for a long time, but chiefly in the Barshai version for string orchestra (op. 118a). It's a work that in its earthy, autumnal splendour is very dear to me. Shostakovich reduces his language to almost artless simplicity. Particularly the last movement is a long, melancholy and seemingly aimless ramble. But whilst it sounds amazingly lapidary, there is solid craftsmanship behind. That's the difference with a piece like Torke's Chalk, which has the prosaicness, but misses the craftsmanship and, hence, sinks into banality.

I listened to both the transcription and the original version for string quartet. Whilst the Fitzwilliam offer a very committed reading, and Barshai's textures (in his own recording) are bit thick, overall I still prefer the orchestral version. I think it is extremely difficult as an ensemble to put the finger on the emotional point of gravity of this work, with the inner movements pulling in different directions (the furious scherzo, the bleak Adagio) and the outer movements being particularly elusive. The Fitzwilliam bring a good deal nervousness to the long finale. Barshai, on the other hand, is extremely relaxed which lends the music a wonderfully dreamlike atmosphere. Also the slightly heavier bass section underlines the bourdon character of some of the writing music, reinforcing the whiff of exoticism that is colouring the music (it was written in Armenia after all). And he shapes the movement expertly around the central climax (where the adagio theme drops in above the movement's downspiralling main theme) which is delivered more forcefully by the orchestral sized forces. So, despite the relative slowness, I find Barshai's reading is never getting dull. I wonder what the Haas Quartet would do with this score ...

Torke: Chalk

Big disappointment, this one. As I've always been impressed with the other two Argo recordings of the Balanescu Quartet (Volans and Bryars), I have tried to dig out some of their earlier recordings. The Argo CDs are very hard to get as they have long disappeared from the catalogue. This album brings together works for string quartet by fringe contemporary composers (David Byrne, Robert Moran, John Lurie and Michael Torke). Can't really say I knew any of them (apart from Byrne as Talking Head, of course). Anyway, what I heard here left me thoroughly cold: flaccid, artless compositions in a kind of bleak and repetitive idiom (for Lurie and Torke) or in a chokingly saccharine, neo-romantic style. Apart from Byrne's short piece they all outstayed their welcome. Audiophage, in his Amazon review, thought the album worth 4 stars, but I disagree that the sheer length of the repetitive doggedness makes it any more interesting. The Balanescu's playing is nowhere near the level of commitment they showed in their other recordings. Two stars, as far as I'm concerned, and then only just.

Prokofiev: String Quartet nr. 2

Back for a moment to where our string quartet journey started, with Prokofiev's Second Quartet, 'On Kabardinian Themes'. Previously I had listened to a recording with the Aurora String Quartet (on Naxos, not so good) and with the St Petersburg Quartet (on Delos, much beter). And now the amazing Pavel Haas Quartet. It's as if I hear the work for the very first time. Everything these guys touch seems to turn into gold. As in the Janacek what strikes is a supreme musicality that illuminates the contrapuntal fabric in the most moving way. There's a plasticity in the playing that keeps one as a listener enthralled.  These are musicians who put the work squarely at the centre. Whilst the technical mastery is abundantly in evidence, this is not about showing off a vapid kind of virtuosity. To the contrary I discern a deep modesty and respect for the music. This is very special.

In their hands, the Prokofiev quartet appears as a great, not merely a good work. The central adagio breathes a deeply felt thankfulness (Mira Mendelssohn!) and the finale bubbles with an exotic, fiery passion. The sound effects are very striking.

It seems to me that with the Haas, Belcea, Artemis and Mosaïques quartet ensembles we have the best of the contemporary crop in this genre. A confirmation of how deeply rooted in Central European culture this way of music making is. All of these ensembles basically hail from a 800 km wide band between Berlin and Bucharest (the Belcea technically is based in the UK, but with Corinna Belcea and Krzystof Chorzelski clearly has Central European roots).

Muse : The Resistance - Wild Beasts: Smother

Briefly: over the weekend I had some great fun listening to Muse's  'edelkitsch'. But look at this: in 1830 we had 'La Muette de Portici' that led to an uprising and ultimately to Belgian 'independence'. Today maybe Muse's Uprising is the soundtrack of revolutionary ferment?

Janacek: String Quartet nr. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata"

The only quartet (and indeed the only serious piece of music) I've heard over the last week is Janacek's First Quartet, after Tolstoy's novella Kreutzer Sonata, from 1923. It's a challenging work from the mature Janacek who allegedly wrote it down in an astonishing nine days.

There was a time when I regularly listened to this work, likely because I was then very much under the influence of that very same novella. But now it had been languishing for many years in one of the darker corners of my CD cupboard. Another rediscovery in my quartet survey, therefore ...

I started with a recording by the Alban Berg Quartet, a live performance from 1993 (part of a 3CD box with a sample of 20th century works in the Quartet's repertoire). An annoying experience. It felt like Janacek's Moravian passion didn't square with the Teutonic rigidity of the ABQ. They tried hard but the whole thing felt artificial and stilted. Then I switched to a disc with the Stamitz Quartet that was part of a survey of Czech quartets issued by Brilliant Classics. A less experienced ensemble but the playing is energetic, down to earth and colourful and the sound very good. However, after four or five auditions of this version I suddenly tired of it. Janacek's expressionistic histrionics got on my nerves.

Today, after a break of a couple of days, I listened to the version of the Pavel Haas Quartet (on Supraphon), which just came in with an Amazon delivery. And indeed, it is a reading that does the stellar reputation of this young quartet honour. First of all, the Haas take a more leisurely approach to the score. Their total timing adds up to almost 19 minutes, whilst almost 2 minutes slower than the Berg (and even more compared to the quicker Stamitz). It may not seem like much, but it makes a lot of difference in terms of letting the music breath. It's a story that is being told, after all. And the narrator shouldn't get out of breath. I haven't seen any kind of formal analysis of this work but it strikes me as fairly disjointed. I may be mistaken but there does not seem to be a compelling musical logic that ties these four disparate movements together. It's a narrative backbone that follows the storyline outlined by Tolstoy. In the booklet that goes with the Supraphon it is told as follows (by Jiri Benes):

The four-movement composition is at once Janacek's most compact and most tragic musical drama. The story begins to unfold in the first section with the fate motif (a rising fourth with an added second, one of the building blocks of Janacek's musical vocabulary) and the passionately melodic theme of the heroine; in the second, the fateful encounter takes place, an experience continually broken up by the basic dance character of the scherzo movement. The romantic events of the third movement with its intertwining two-voice canon are interrupted before their fervent and yet severe climax by the entrance of a foreign element, and continue after a supremely violent scene - only as a monologue now, but still more heartfelt - as a remininscence. The Finale begins with three recitative meditations on the fate motif, and then with the entrance of the allegro moves through a brisk, mounting series of passionate love scenes to its climax and unstoppable catastrophe: Janacek's version of Dvorak's characteristic motif from the Requiem appears in the double shrieks of the viola as a representation of death, tragically and definitively confirmed here by the fate theme. In the shadow of its finality, however, the well-known reprise begins, carrying all the contradictory ideas of the movement in one stirring stream to a monumental catharsis, to a statement of faith in man and his moral strength.

 Clearly, this music is all about 'interruptions', 'contradictions' and things that are 'broken up'. The fate motif figures as a ghostly motto theme. The point I want to make is that apparently it seems difficult for an quartet ensemble to bring this violent thematic montage to life in a compelling, satisfactory way. This lack of inner logic bedeviled, in my opinion, the ABQ recording, and, to a lesser degree also the reading by the Stamitz Quartet. In hearing the Haas Quartet, I have an immediate experience of coherence, of things fitting together in a plausible way. The slower tempo will have a lot to do with it. But the playing itself is also imaginative and wonderfully affectionate. Nothing of the mannerisms characteristic of the ABQ. Just listen to the opening of the quartet, with the rising, questioning motif played unisono by the whole quartet and an irregular, parlando response by consecutively the cello, the viola and the second violin. The ABQ play the solo responses with plenty of accents and ritardandos. It sounds clever, but not musical. With the Haas, the phrase sings in the most natural and unaffected manner. It is more 'simple' but also so much more characterful than what the Viennese dish out. And that sets the tone for the whole work. There is a pervasive groundedness in the music making that, I assume, will never make us tire from it. To be sure, the Haas to do not shirk the expressionistic excesses embedded in the score, but in terms of astringent sound effects and dynamic contrasts. But they do not sound like 'effects', but are an organic part of the musical fabric.

Anyway, these are just my first impressions and I look very much forward to listening to the other works recorded by this fine quartet.

Simpson: String Quartet nr. 7

From McCabe to Simpson is only a small step. But in the case of their Fifth and Seventh Quartet, respectively, it amounts to a leap from the bees' microcosmos to the mysteries of the universe. I might have chosen to dip into Simpson's Eighth Quartet too, which would have prolonged the stay in the entomological realm as it is dedicated to the biologist J.D. Gillett, the discoverer of a species of mosquito. However, my choice fell on the shorter Quartet nr. 7, of 1977, dedicated to Lady (Susi) Jeans, accomplished organist, in memory of her deceased husband and astronomer, Sir James Jeans.

Robert Simpson's music was one of the more important musical discoveries for me during the past years. I'd known and admired his Ninth Symphony for years without, however, making the step to explore a little wider afield. The acquaintance then with the full symphonic cycle of 11 symphonies (on Hyperion, very capably conducted by Vernon Handley) convinced me that here was a worthy heir to my beloved Carl Nielsen. There is an obvious, readily audible correspondence between their works as Simpson recycles many of Nielsen's harmonic and thematic fingerprints in his music. But Simpson is powerful enough as a creative artist to get beyond mere epigonism. There is a genuine consonance of spirit too. In Simpson we find the same intransigence, the same kind of steely resolve so typical for Nielsen. It seems to me Simpon is the more learned and intellectualistic composer of the two, whilst the Dane strikes me as more choleric.

The Seventh Quartet is a 20-minute work composed in a straightforward, ternary structure: a slow and brooding introduction leads to a lively central section which reconnects to the quartet's mysterious opening. The music associates readily with the frigid vastness of the universe. It is very contrapuntally written and pervaded with a pulsating nervousness. The energetic central section could have been vintage Nielsen. It sounds like the Inextinguishable has been transposed to a vastly smaller ensemble but projected on a cosmic scale. There is nothing anecdotal about this music. It hasn't been written to charm and lacks the wit and grace of McCabe's apiary fantasy. But there is an inescapable fascination that goes with this granitic, austere but very pure musical language.

The complete series of Simpson quartets is spread over 9 Hyperion CDs. Unfortunately there are no plans to re-issue the full set in cheaper boxed set (confirmed to me by Simon Perry, Hyperion's director). However, one advantage with the edition in separate CDs is the beautiful artwork, most of it dedicated to mysterious images from the cosmos. This particular CD sports an "x-ray photograph of the Seyfert radio galaxy, showing the 100 million degrees K 'quasar core' at the centre of which is thought to be a massive black hole."

I am less taken by the quality of the recording (produced by Simpson himself, in 1983). Compared to the McCabe it sounds rather distant and disembodied. A great pity, I find. Anyway, it won't keep me from collecting the whole cycle.