Beneath the Surface #12 - Panorama of American Piano Music – From Antheil to Zappa: 1911 to 1991

Composer: Various, all American

Works: Many! For a full tracklisting click here

Performers: Yvar Mikhashoff (piano)

Label: Mode

Background and Critical Reception

On Saturday May 19th, 1984, Yvar Mikhashoff (seen in the picture with John Cage) gave an extraordinary concert on Broadway.

Billed as The Great American Piano Marathon, it fulfilled a promise of Seventy Works in Seven Hours from Seventy Years, and made the most of the pianist’s friendship and contact with many of America's leading composers.

Mikhashoff, who died in 1993, began with an excerpt from Charles Ives' vast Concord Sonata, The Alcotts, while his finishing piece was the Tango by John Cage, one of four of the composer’s works to be included. He travelled by way of some of the great luminaries of American music – Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein, Nancarrow and many more. Yet he chose not to go with conventional or obvious pieces, which led to the inclusion of rarities such as the Copland Three Moods, and Gershwin's Impromptu In Two Keys.

For this album Mode revisit Mikhashoff's recordings, building a history of the century's piano music in America in his memory. What we get is therefore not so much the great works of twentieth century American piano music (some examples being Barber's Piano Sonata, Gershwin's Three Preludes or Steve Reich's Piano Phase) but more examples of compositional craft in the country, as well as intriguing morsels and rarities.

The Alcotts is once again the starting point, and the four discs unfold chronologically through works by Griffes (Three Preludes), Antheil (Sonata: Death of Machines), Morton Feldman (Vertical Thoughts 4) and John Cage (Landscape), arriving at the premiere of Nancarrow's Three Two-Part Studies, given by Mikhashoff in 1991.

Thoughts

It would of course be foolish to try and experience all this music in one sitting, but dipping in and out of Mode's compendium is a fascinating experience, providing a wholly alternative history of the piano and its development in America.

Several different 'movements' present themselves – we have minimalism from Philip Glass and Lukas Foss, a work for piano and tape from Mario Davidovsky, four differing works from John Cage, or the more bluesy approach of

A wistful performance of The Alcotts, one of the cornerstones of the American piano repertoire, makes for a winning start, while the Griffes preludes are very enjoyable too, the third lost in its own thought.

There are also some unexpected additions from composers of abroad who spent time in America – Grainger (the expansive Pastorale from In A Nutshell), Stravinsky, Bloch and Krenek, all of whom were in a sense ‘honorary’ Americans.

The range and scope of the whole collection is too much to do justice to completely in the course of a shorter review, but memorable excerpts begin with Henry Cowell’s Amiable Conversation, which could easily have been written yesterday but which is actually from 1917. The very valuable rarities are well worth hearing too, especially the first recording of Copland's Three Sonnets.

The piano itself has quite a harsh sound at times, especially in the brief souvenir of Virgil Thomson, which sounds like an unpublished piece from a Bartók sketchbook, but the producer Brian Brandt has struggled manfully to make the sound as forgiving as possible. Brandt contributes an interesting booklet note as a suffix to an excellent mini-book that looks at Mikhashoff's friendship with American composers.

Back to the music – and the second disc feels more traditional, especially in items like Roy Harris' first American Ballad, which has an attractive language. Two of the Seven Anniversaries of Leonard Bernstein make brief and extravert appearances, while John Cage's seminal piece In A Landscape makes a timeless interlude, thoughtfully played.
The third disc begins in mysterious, murky waters with the stillness of Feldman's Vertical Thoughts 4, which leads to the touching simplicity of the Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness's Five Visionary Landscapes. The fourth, Evening Bell, bears the accent of both countries.

It is off hearing the other sounds of Davidovsky's piece for piano and tape, Synchronisms no.6, but they are strangely effective, like being in an old curiosity shop of noises. This cuts to the spectacular feats of virtuosity in the Crumb, the tumbling figures from an excerpt from Makrokosmos. Lou Harrison's A Waltz for Evelyn Hinrichsen is delightfully graceful, part of an imaginative and spontaneous sequence of waltzes on CD3 that leads to the bluesy waltz of Tom Constanten, a simple but effective winner. Glass, in his Modern Love Waltz, is quite romantic but inevitably repetitive.

It is ironically the minimalist 'area' where the coverage of this disc is not as effective, with no contributions from John Adams or Steve Reich, and a long piece, Solo, by Lukas Foss, that I found difficult to warm to with its relentless, caustic figurations.

Yet this is a small price to pay for such an imaginative and exhaustive survey. Small portraits of the American prairies or the cities can be found at every term, and are vignettes of emotion, starting points for listening elsewhere. I will definitely follow up on Hovhaness, for instance, but will also return to the Concord Sonata, the music of Antheil, and the massive output of John Cage.

And the Zappa? It's unusually reflective, an introduction to Little House I Used To Live In. But then that’s the charm of this set, always giving new and unexpected insights.

Verdict

If you don't mind quite a dry piano sound this is like leafing through an encyclopaedia of modern American classical music. Yvar Mikhashoff is an ever-engaging guide, playing with great character and affection, illuminating the corners of a repertoire that is far bigger than anyone could possibly imagine.

Further listening

The complete Panorama of American Piano Music can be heard on Spotify by clicking here

Beneath the Surface #11 - Malcolm Williamson: Piano Concertos

Composer: Malcolm Williamson (Australian, 1931-2003)

Works: Piano Concerto no.1 in A major (1958), Concerto in A minor for two pianos and string orchestra (1971), Piano Concerto no.2 in F sharp minor (1960), Piano Concerto no.3 in E flat major (1962), Sinfonia concertante in F sharp major for piano, three trumpets and orchestra (1962), Piano Concerto no.4 in D major (1994)

Performers: Piers Lane (piano), Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra / Howard Shelley

Label: Hyperion

Audio

Clips from this new recording can be heard at the Hyperion website

The current Master of the Queen's Music is Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a composer who has enjoyed a relatively high profile over the years. Yet the music of the previous incumbent, the Australian composer Malcolm Williamson, has not fared so well – nor has he enjoyed anything of the exposure or critical warmth afforded to Maxwell Davies.

For 28 years he held the post, right up until his death in 2003, but he was the first Master of the Queen's Music not to be knighted. Perhaps this was because he still regarded himself as firmly Australian, despite moving to the UK in 1953. A great quote at the end of the Guardian obituary in his honour sums it up neatly. "Most of my music is Australian. Not the bush or the deserts, but the brashness of the cities. The sort of brashness that makes Australians go through life pushing doors marked pull."

Williamson, a colourful character, wrote a lot of music, but it gradually fell out of favour with the critics during the 1970s. Interestingly, he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1976, soon after his appointment – a program that can be heard and even downloaded on the Radio 4 website. His choices include Britten's Les illuminations - Britten being the composer who was initially approached to be Master of the Queen's Music. Yet later in his life Williamson was called to question for some disparaging comments about the composer – and blotted his copybook in royal circles by failing to meet the deadline for a commission for the Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Yet he did write a lot of music for piano and orchestra, which Hyperion have collected here – and which is appropriately accompanied by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. There are four numbered piano concertos, a Sinfonia Concertant for piano with three trumpets and orchestra and a Concerto for two pianos and orchestra, a form that was to prove popular with British composers such as Malcolm Arnold and Alan Rawsthorne.

Three of the concertos have been recorded before, but this release sees the first recorded account of the fourth.

Thoughts

In his works for piano and orchestra Williamson writes with great vigour and enthusiasm. The most substantial work, the Piano Concerto no.3 in E flat major, is also the most difficult to work out – but rewards the efforts made.

Its first movement Toccata is almost completely self-contained, but has some brilliant material – with a catchy theme, some imaginative development and instrumentation, and some punchy rhythms. There is more than a little like Stravinsky in its spiky figurations, and some crunchy harmonies, while with a soaring melody on the violins at the end, it almost sounds like a last movement placed first. The second movement, also quite fast, begins with an airy and insistent movement that suggests Poulenc, while the third starts in a haze of strings before bold piano interventions rock the boat. The work ends with a striking epilogue, with strings, high wind and piano in long notes together – brilliantly played in this recording.

The Piano Concerto no.1 in A major is also excellent. A briefly misty introduction quickly comes together into a forthright first movement which has strong hints of Prokofiev in its percussive piano writing, but also in some of the grand themes that come out. A regal tune powers the third movement for a massive finish to a very listenable work.

I found the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra much tougher going. This is partly on account of my ears – I find two pianos and orchestra quite a tricky combination to enjoy – but also because Williamson seems to delight in hammering home his musical points here, and there is little room for subtlety. The slow movement is unexpectedly graceful however, with a rather moving section taking its lead from plainchant, as detailed in the excellent booklet notes to this recording. The spectacular finish means this is not a write-off by any means – as there are still some good tunes – but ultimately I found this a piece best listened to on its own.

The Piano Concerto no.2, accompanied by strings only, has the best tune – its finale, suggesting encounters with Gershwin, fizzes along and is completely catchy! The tune was in my head within minutes and stayed there for a long time. It caps a work that brims with tunes elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Sinfonia concertante with three trumpets and piano in the exotic key of F sharp major – packs a punch in this performance, brilliantly played by the three brass soloists in a way that makes an unlikely combination work. I don’t find the melodic invention as spontaneous in this work, which is not surprising given his use of serial methods while writing this work, but it is never less than entertaining. The slow movement – again with religious connections, this time drawing from the Salve Regina - is more thought provoking.

The fourth piano concerto, completed as recently as 1994, is a shorter work but it seizes the moment immediately, driving forward with great determination – a bit more mechanical in its profile maybe, but still providing melodic interest. The orchestra is a big one, and Williamson writes some forceful music for it – but again in the slow movement pulls things back for music of grace and poise, reminding us he was a stage composer too.

Verdict

If you like the piano concertos of Prokofiev or Gershwin, Williamson is but a short hop away. There is some really enjoyable music here that suggests some happy acquaintances with jazz and ragtime, as well as twentieth-century classical music. Each of these performances is superb, brilliantly played and thoroughly understood by Piers Lane and Howard Shelley.

In the slow movements especially Williamson reaches deeper emotions, balancing the extrovert faster music very nicely. Because of that balance these works – with the possible exception of the two-piano concerto – are consistently rewarding, and come highly recommended.

Further listening

This Williamson playlist on Spotify includes the composer as soloist in his Piano Concerto no.3, along with the Symphony no.1, the Organ Concerto , the Sinfonia concertante and the Concerto for two pianos and orchestra.

Beneath the Surface #10 - Mieczysław Weinberg: Symphony no.10, works for violin

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg (Soviet, of Polish-Jewish origin, 1919-1996)

Works: Solo Violin Sonata no.3 Op.126 (1979), String Trio Op.48 (1950), Sonatina for violin and piano Op.46 (1949), Concertino for violin and string orchestra Op.42 (1948), Symphony no.10 for string orchestra Op.98 (1968)

Performers: Gidon Kremer (violin and conductor), Daniil Grishin (viola), Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė (cello), Daniil Trifonov (piano), Kremerata Baltica

Label: ECM

Background and Critical Reception

It is only in the last couple of decades that the music of Mieczysław Weinberg has emerged from hiding – and it is only in the last couple of years that his name has tended towards receiving its correct Polish spelling, as he has normally been known under the Russian spelling of Moisei Vainberg.

Yet that is a relatively small point alongside his upbringing – for to say the composer and his family led a troubled existence would be a huge understatement. As the Second World War began, Weinberg, who had studied at the Conservatory in Warsaw, fled from Poland to the Soviet Union. Tragically his family, who remained behind, were condemned to the concentration camp at Trawniki.

As the only surviving member of the family, Weinberg settled in Minsk, and then Tashkent, where he befriended Dmitri Shostakovich – whose friendship was to become a lasting one. Like Shostakovich, Weinberg was under Stalin's directive aimed at all Soviet composers, whereby they were forced to write music that pleased the ruling dictator. Yet while Shostakovich and Prokofiev were under close scrutiny, Weinberg was not subjected to such close examination after Stalin died – but the guidelines did of course continue to affect his musical flexibility. While he lived in Russia for the rest of his life, the vast majority of his music was unheard until very recently.

When the vastness of his output is revealed it is remarkable to think it was kept from public view, particularly the striking and powerful opera The Passenger, one of seven stage works that has only recently come to light in the UK in a production by David Pountney and English National Opera in 2006.

The music on this new ECM disc provides an introduction to a number of different disciplines in which Weinberg excelled. The Symphony no.10, for string orchestra, is one of twenty-two. The Solo Violin Sonata no.3 is one of many works he wrote for his first instrument, while the Sonatina for violin and piano - part of a substantial canon of chamber works centred on the 1940s – is followed closely by the String Trio of 1950. The Concertino for violin and string orchestra also dates from the late 1940s.

In a valuable booklet note for the ECM release appraised here, Wolfgang Sander warns that 'caution is advised when applying labels such as conservative, neo-classical, folklike or conformist to music that allegedly toed the official party line of life-affirming folklorism'. This is a timely reminder that Weinberg and his contemporaries, particularly Shostakovich, frequently worked double meaning into their musical statements. What they really wanted to say could be found beneath the surface of the music.


Thoughts

This is a fine Weinberg anthology, a good place to start for those new to the composer, and in Gidon Kremer it has the best possible exponent of his music.

Kremer approaches this music having already made recordings of Weinberg's contemporaries – Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Schnittke in particular – and his affinity with the composer is clear and immediate.

Weinberg was a violinist, so knew the instrument well – and Kremer instinctively grasps the phrases and figurations of the Solo Violin Sonata no.3. Kremer has a lofty valuation of this piece, though I'm not sure I would agree with his observation that it is as great as Bartók's peerless work in the form. It does however carry a powerful impact, particularly in a performance such as this. The repeated notes of the opening are agitated, as if trying to break out of confines imposed on the instrument, but the slower melody at around six minutes in is tender and reflective. Kremer himself suggests a program behind the work, one that speaks of the composer's parents, and what he says certainly tallies with the music. He is the best possible performer for this work, putting his heart and soul into it, particularly the closing pages, which are plaintive and introverted, lost in thought.

The Sonatina for violin and piano is by definition a slighter piece, and coming on the heels of the solo work it is a musical thirst quencher to hear the sound of the piano added to the violin. This work is noticeably warmer than its solo counterpart, especially in the dreamy second theme of the first movement. The relative simplicity of its language is a little disconcerting, however, and perhaps its composer is aware of this too, for the second movement is more abrasive and piercing, before the violin soars towards the end of the third. Though not as emotionally charged as the solo work, it offers a nice complement – and ends with a rather exotic harmony that certainly does not sound Russian.

The String Trio is an uncompromising piece with quite a bruising first movement, sharp in timbre and unremitting in its musical phrases. It is quite rustic at times, but there is a good deal of strong feeling here, some of it painful, though it resolves calmly. The Concertino for violin and string orchestra has a similar countenance to the Sonatina - a little more tonally direct than some of his music, but with the violin part beautifully written. Gidon Kremer brings to it an intensely lyrical tone that works beautifully.

Saving the best for last, the Symphony no.10 is a remarkable piece that manages to incorporate experimental workings with genuine expression, for Weinberg appears to have found a formula that allows him to compose in a 'serial' manner but not at the expense of melody or emotional insight. The second movement brings this into a dreamy realisation that recalls the music of Berg but is also strangely elusive, cold and distant.

By contrast the sweeping statements of the outer movements carry a majestic power that spills over into a rush of energy from each the solo strings, their combined force truly a power to be reckoned with in this performance from Kremerata Baltica. There are profound solo outbursts, too – none more penetrating than the viola at the emotional heart of the third movement, a diatribe of raw feeling that brings all the strings together, uniting in a single chord. This is music every bit as intimate and powerful as a Shostakovich string quartet.

Verdict

The parallels with Shostakovich are inevitable and flattering, but Weinberg's music is a lot more than mere parody or imitation of his friend.

Each of the works here show off his musical flexibility, and also reveal the direct and piercing emotional insights that can be found when listening to his music. That someone should suffer so greatly yet produce music of this quality is uplifting indeed, and great credit should go to Kremer and ECM for their thorough understanding of these corners of a vast musical output.

Let's hope a lot more of it is made available in the coming years!

Further listening

There is not a great deal of Weinberg on Spotify, but this playlist offers the Violin Concerto and the Trumpet Concerto, bookending works for cello and chamber orchestra.

Beneath the Surface #9 - C.P.E. Bach on his 300th birthday

Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Germany, 1714-1788)

Works: Cello Concertos; Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu; Magnificat; Württemberg Sonatas

Performers: Antonio Meneses (cello), Münchener Kammerorchestra; Soloists and Ex Tempore, La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken; Elizabeth Watts (soprano), RIAS Kammerchor & Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin / Hans-Christoph Rademann; Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)

Labels: PAN Classics, Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi

Background and Critical Reception

Today is Bach's birthday. Not the great master Johann Sebastian, but his second son (and fifth child), Carl Philipp Emanuel, born three hundred years ago to the day.

Although understandably living in his father's shadow these days, C.P.E. has enjoyed a healthy resurgence in the last few decades, and recordings of his music are increasingly frequent. Getting the ball rolling were artists such as Ton Koopman, Gustav Leonhardt and Christopher Hogwood, who turned to his music as part of the 'period instrument' revival of the 1970s. But because C.P.E., like his father, was very prolific, there was still a lot of music unexplored.

One of the problems facing C.P.E. is that he does not fall into a recognisable category. Despite his birth year, he is emphatically not a composer of the Baroque period like his father, and although he died in 1788, three years before Mozart, he is not a composer of the Classical period either. This means he does not have a label, which should not be a problem – but it has held him back as people have struggled to fit him in.

More recently, though, his music has come into its own. There are indeed elements of both Baroque and Classical that can be heard, but there are also features peculiar only to C.P.E. himself. These are sometimes unpredictable, suggesting a short attention span on the part of the composer. Although C.P.E.’s music takes the on traditional forms of Concerto, Sonata and the emerging Symphony, he often moves in unpredictable directions, like he might in a 'Fantasia'. This introduces a really intriguing tension to his music, some of which is hyperactive and daring for its time, and some of which can take unexpected harmonic turns.

I chose four new discs to listen to this week – with Antonio Meneses playing and directing the three Cello Concertos, a reissue of Sigiswald Kuijken conducting the big oratorio Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu (The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus), then a new disc on Harmonia Mundi conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann recreating a concert from April 9, 1786, when C.P.E. conducted a charity concert in Hamburg. It begins with the Magnificat before moving on to Heilig (Te Deum Laudamus), a piece of which he wrote "It will be my swan song of this kind, and will serve to ensure I shall not soon be forgotten after my death". Finally the up and coming harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani played the Württemberg Sonatas.

Thoughts

It has been a fascinating week in the company of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

The Cello Concertos I was already familiar with, but it was good to be reminded just how good a work the A minor Concerto is, with its incredibly distinctive tune. Antonio Meneses plays it brilliantly, and the accompaniment from the Munich Chamber Orchestra is consistently crisp and vital. In the slow movement Meneses is lyrical but quite understated, and in the slow movement of the F major Concerto there is some really lovely high register playing from the cellist, faultless in his intonation.

Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt (The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus) is a more imposing piece, right from the start and its rather ominous intro. The murmuring bass strings suggest the depiction of Chaos at the start of Haydn's The Creation – and indeed this piece could well have influenced the later composer's thinking. The light begins to pierce the darkness at the start of the first choral number, before some terrific rolling drums depict how 'Judea trembles!'

Later there is a heavenly duet between soprano and tenor, Vater deiner schwachen Kinder, singing of how 'O Love, which thou thyself did bewail, O how every tear softens thy so friendly heart!' The triumphant final number, while quite lengthy, is a joyful hymn of praise.

Like many eighteenth-century examples of the Magnificat, C.P.E.'s is in D major. It receives an excellent performance in the new recording from Hans-Christoph Rademann, with a lovely soprano solo in the second number (Quia respexit humilitatem) from Elizabeth Watts, whose voice floats above the strings. Yet the piece that really stopped me in my tracks was Helig ist Gott, for when the choir comes in time seems to stand still. This is the piece C.P.E. wanted to be remembered by, and it is especially notable because the choir sing very slowly, in contrast to the movement going on in the instrumental parts. It gets a wonderful performance here.

I do not readily warm to harpsichord music, but Mahan Esfahani is a performer I have enjoyed for a while now, and in C.P.E. Bach he is superb. His renditions always keep the principles of freedom that C.P.E.'s music thrives on, at times made known in a torrent of notes in the right hand, like a fantasia, or through a strange alignment of harmonies that hangs in the air, as it does in the first movement of the B minor sonata.

The start of the final movement of this piece was the nearest to Johann Sebastian's music I could imagine – which made me realise how little C.P.E.'s music does in fact sound like that of his father. In addition you could almost imagine a Beethoven sonata beginning in the way the last movement of the B flat major sonata does, hanging on a cadence.

Esfahani plays with great character, humour and imagination, especially enjoying the parts of C.P.E.'s music where improvised musical thought comes to the fore.

Verdict

Any of these four recordings do the music full justice, and champion the cause of an individual composer forging his path. So it's happy birthday to Carl Philipp Emmanuel, composer of some daring and original music for his time, even though that time does not have a name!

Further Listening

Hans-Christoph Rademann can be heard in the Magnificat and Helig ist Gott on Spotify here, while Antonio Meneses plays the Cello Concertos here.

Beneath the Surface #8 - Zoltán Kodály: String Quartets

Composer: Zoltán Kodály (Hungarian, 1882-1967)

Works: String Quartet no.1 Op.2 (1908-9); Intermezzo for string trio (1905); Gavotte (1952); String Quartet no.2 Op.10 (1916-18)

Performers: Dante Quartet [Krysia Osostowicz, Giles Francis (violins), Rachel Roberts (viola), Richard Jenkinson (cello)]

Label: Hyperion

Audio

Clips from this new recording can be heard at the Hyperion website

Background and Critical Reception

It is an increasingly commonly held perception that Zóltan Kodály is the greatly overlooked composer in twentieth-century Hungarian music. His contemporary Béla Bartók gets a lot more attention on all sides, and takes considerably more credit for the successful appropriation of the country’s many folk themes within classical frameworks.

Perhaps it is because Bartók offered a stronger challenge to formal designs and harmonic boundaries, often distorting his folk melodies away from instant recognition. My experience with Kodály's music, however, is that he is often more instantly accessible and more heart-on-sleeve in the sense that very little stands between the listener and his music.

This is especially true in the case of orchestral pieces such as the Dances of Galánta from 1933, using themes from an area that now lies within Slovakia, and the Dances of Marosszék from 1930. With Bartók it is sometimes a case of needing to peel away a layer or two to see what lies beneath.

Both composers were good friends, meeting in 1905 – the same year in which the Intermezzo on this disc was written. Both Kodály and Bartók wrote with great imagination and flair for strings, completing highly expressive solo sonatas for stringed instruments (Bartók for the violin and Kodály for the cello), then completing folk-inspired duets (Bartók for two violins in 44 Duets and Kodály in the form of a Duo for Violin and Cello) but their primary form of expression in chamber music became the string quartet.

This is where the two composers' fortunes could hardly be more different, for while Bartók's cycle of six is rightly revered as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – of the twentieth century, Kodály's two contributions are hardly ever heard. This may be in part due to the sheer size of the first, which runs to over forty minutes, making it one of the longest quartet works in the repertoire. There is much less of an excuse for the neglect of the Second, though, for only the Hagen and Melos Quartets have made major label recordings of the work.

This disc from the Dante Quartet therefore fills a gap in the repertoire, including not just the two quartets but the short Gavotte and the Intermezzo for string trio.

Thoughts

Kodály is not one to do things by halves! The musical language on this disc is direct, sometimes harrowing, and sometimes reckless – but never dull.

Neither is he short of a tune or two, and even in a massive work such as the String Quartet no.1, there is a continuous melodic invention, a refusal to go back and simply repeat the ideas already set out.

This work dominates the disc, a huge presence that reveals some of the composer's other influences alongside folk song. The Slavic language of Dvořák and Borodin can be heard in glimpses here, as can some of the quartet writing of Debussy, who wrote his only quartet in 1893. Kodály tends to score ambitiously for his stringed instruments, with the result that in this work it often feels as if eight people are playing, thanks to the frequent use of double stopping.

The first movement is bracing, out of the blocks with a forceful cello utterance that sets the tone of feverish intensity. This does let up, though, and as the movement progresses there is graceful nobility to its second theme. The slow movement leaves a lasting impression, a tender piece of music that is affecting, reducing itself almost to silence on occasion through its intense contemplation before building by way of a fugue to an impressive unison statement. The third movement, a scherzo, is much shorter and more obviously folk influenced, while the finale, after a feverish introduction, presents a disarmingly simple theme in C major, which Kodály subjects to some increasingly outlandish variations and a no-holds barred ending.

At times the sheer length of this work can be daunting, and the ear can lose some of the melodies in the packed central parts of the longer movements as the music becomes notable for its gritty determination. But there is much to enjoy here, and a strength of character that remains with the listener.

The String Quartet no.2, a wartime work, has a much more compact design, the composer finding more compressed but equally direct ways of expressing himself. This is a very fine work, packed into three movements that keep the folksong influence but introduce a more elusive emotional element. The language is not as direct or heart-on-sleeve as the first quartet, but on repeated hearing becomes just as meaningful, bound together with tighter structural control and more complex harmonies. The elusive, wiry first movement and the free form second, where the instruments take on more soloistic roles, find their release in the rustic finale, where the cello leads off a dance-themed movement with gusto, its main theme reminiscent of the Dances of Marosszék.

The two 'fillers' are very attractive, the tuneful Intermezzo working really well with its noticeably 'younger' style after the weighty first quartet. The Gavotte, a much later piece, is a winsome trifle, very light on its feet and with a tinge of melancholy, but a nice encore piece.

Verdict

If you are familiar with the six quartets of Bartók then this disc is an excellent complement to that cycle. This is music that is never less than forthcoming with its feelings, and the incredibly high standard of playing from the Dante Quartet gives Kodály's music its best possible vehicle.

Further listening

There are no recordings of the String Quartet no.1 on Spotify but a Kodály playlist including the String Quartet no.2 can be accessed here, also featuring some of the composer’s best-loved orchestral and choral works – the Dances of Galánta, the Dances of Marosszék, the Psalmus Hungaricus and the Sonata for Solo Cello.