For its very first recording on Chandos, the Arcadia String Quartet presents what has been at the very heart of its musical career and influences: the complete string quartets by Bartók.
With the music of the Hungarian composer, the members of this Romanian ensemble, neighbours of his birthplace, have won such major careershaping competitions as Osaka, the Wigmore Hall, and Hamburg.
Bartók’s attachment to the string quartet – as to no other genre – was to the keystone of the Viennese tradition, but with the aim of moving the medium out of its native city a little, into the countryside of alternative tonalities and rhythms. The six mature works he wrote are being revealed here with all the singular patterns, mixed modalities, bitterness, lamentations, and, at times, bright folk influences which they contain.
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REVIEWS:
Whatever the inspirations, these players are alive to them, just as they are alert to the technical demands lurking around every corner. These Arcadians also find haunting desolation.
– BBC Music Magazine
If I was asked to recommend a Bartók cycle to a first-time listener intimidated by his spiky reputation, I’d send them straight to the Arcadia Quartet. Even for the aficionado, this spacious, big-hearted vision of Bartók as poet, dreamer, and humorist has something distinctive and beautiful to say.
With this sixth volume, the Arcadia Quartet completes it's series of recordings of Weinberg's string quartets. The ensemble comments: 'Although from time to time we encounter music that we have never heard before, rarely is that music something we would listen to or play again. In our times, with our technology of information, it is rather difficult to discover something meaningful and valuable that had been overlooked in the past, but when it does happen it is a really special moment. For us it happened when we first encountered the string quartets of Mieczyslaw Weinberg. We felt instantly captivated by the wonderful music, the deeply inspired melodies, and perfectly shaped structures. The joy of playing his music has only proved equalled by the enthusiastic response of the public every time we present these quartets in concert, so the obvious question arises: "How can it be that we never heard about Weinberg earlier?" His music is like a glow of light surrounded by the darkness of the unknown, and it quickly became a goal of ours to attempt to dilute these shadows. With every recording and every live performance of his music, we intend to shine some light on this wide-ranging, profound phenomenon, which has remained overlooked for so long.'
The seventeen string quartets of Weinberg span nearly half a century, from his student days in Warsaw to the end of his career in Moscow, and show his development as a composer more clearly than his work in any other genre. The Second Quartet, composed in 1939 – 40 whilst studying in Minsk, was dedicated to his mother and sister, who he would later learn had not survived the German invasion of Poland. Quartet No. 5, of 1945, was the first in which he added titles to each movement, and reflects the influence of Shostakovich over the young composer. The final quartet in this programme – No. 8 – was written in 1959 and dedicated to the Borodin Quartet. For many years the best-known of Weinberg’s quartets in the west, this single-movement work is divided into three sections with a coda. The Arcadia Quartet is a passionate advocate for these quartets, writing: ‘[Weinberg’s] music is like a glow of light surrounded by the darkness of the unknown, and it quickly became a goal of ours to attempt to dilute these shadows. With every recording and every live performance of his music, we intend to shine some light on this wide-ranging, profound phenomenon, which has remained overlooked for so long, and we hope that, with time, Mieczys?aw Weinberg will take his rightful place in the history of music.’
REVIEW:
The Arcadia’s evident enthusiasm for the music is perfectly conveyed here with playing that maximises the emotional range explored in each work, as well as exploiting to the full the music’s tonal and textural varieties and its underlying sense of unease. These contrasts are placed in sharp relief when comparing the relentless Bartókian ferocity they achieve in the rhythmically dynamic Scherzo from the Fifth Quartet with the easygoing geniality that is projected in the opening movement of the Second, or the austere solemnity that characterises the slow sections of the Eighth.
The Arcadia Quartet reaches the penultimate release in it's acclaimed complete Weinberg string quartets series with this volume, featuring Quartets Nos 3, 9, and 14. As in previous volumes, the works are taken from contrasting periods of Weinberg's compositional development, and so present a varied programme that works in it's own right. Quartet No. 3, composed in 1944, could be considered as the first 'mature' quartet, and is set in three movements. The Ninth Quartet, composed in 1963, dates from his self-described 'starry decade', when his work was championed by a significant group of enthusiastic performers, including Emil Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Kirill Kondrashin, Rudolf Barshai, and the Borodin Quartet. Quartet No. 14 dates from 1978, three years after the death of Weinberg's great friend and mentor Shostakovich: a time when Weinberg was questioning and renewing his artistic identity. The album also includes the short Improvisation and Romance, from 1950.
The Arcadia Quartet’s acclaimed survey of Weinberg’s String Quartets continues with this fourth volume containing Quartets Nos 6, 13, and 15. Quartet No. 6 was composed in 1946, the composer dedicating it to his friend Georgiy Sviridov, whom he had met in Shostakovich’s circle. The Quartet is a summit of his early achievements, and its musical language is strikingly advanced in relation to traditional Soviet works in the genre. It was banned by the authorities, and as a result, Weinberg wrote no more quartets until after the death of his mentor Shostakovich. String Quartet No. 13 was composed in 1977 and dedicated to the Borodin Quartet. It comprises a single movement lasting some fourteen or fifteen minutes, making it the shortest of all Weinberg’s quartets. String Quartet No. 15, from 1979, is in many respects the most radically conceived of all Weinberg’s quartets – certainly its nine-movement design suggests so. In expressive terms, too, it is one of the most elusive. The movements carry no titles or expressive directions, and, as in the case of his previous two quartets, Weinberg confines himself to metronome indications, avoiding all specification of character.
REVIEWS:
The Arcadia Quartet's underlying technical finesse and emotional commitment duly reinforce this music’s stature.
— Gramophone
Whatever the music’s texture and temperature, the Arcadia group plunge in without fear, doubly armed with their sturdy technique and total commitment to Weinberg’s cause.
As with the previous volumes in their survey of the quartets of Weinberg, the Arcadia Quartet have selected a pair of works from contrasting stylistic periods of the composer’s output. The Fourth Quartet was composed in 1945, shortly after Weinberg had moved to Moscow. The Quartet presents an abstract, psychologically universal picture – a testimony both to the composer’s artistic maturity and to the affinity that Weinberg had discovered with Shostakovich. The Sixteenth Quartet was composed between 1 January and 15 February 1981. It carries a dedication to Weinberg’s sister, Ester, who had perished following the Nazi invasion of Poland and would have been sixty that year. Typical of his later compositional style, the writing is more muscular, harmonically complex, and intense.
For this the second volume in their series of Weinberg’s string quartets, the Arcadia Quartet again presents three quartets from contrasting periods in the stylistic development of the composer. The first quartet of the self-taught teenager, written in 1937, in what Weinberg later described as his ‘neo-impressionist’ style, was heavily revised later in his life, and eventually re-published as Op. 141, in 1985. (It is this revised version that has been recorded here, the original version surviving only in manuscript form, in places virtually illegible.) The seventh quartet dates from 1957, after a gap of twenty turbulent years that had witnessed the emigration of Weinberg from Poland to Russia, his introduction to Shostakovich, and his experience of censorship and imprisonment in 1953. In contrast to his earlier quartets, the mood is more intimate and withdrawn, yet defiant.
The eleventh quartet was composed between 13 October 1965 and 25 December 1966, at a time when Weinberg was mulling over the composition of his first opera, The Passenger. It is dedicated to his first daughter, Victoria, and was premièred by the Borodin Quartet on 13 April 1967 in the Chamber Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire.
REVIEW:
That the emotional contours of Weinberg's works resemble those of his fellow countryman and contemporary Shostakovich's should be no surprise, as the two composers had many of the same experiences, The genuinely tragic first movement and the beginning of the finale of his String Quartet No. 7 match the intensity of any of Shostakovich's middle-period works, and the finale embodies a kind of grim defiance. The String Quartet No. 11 has a broader language that, as with Shostakovich, leaves room for sardonic undercurrents. However, Weinberg is no Shostakovich clone, for he takes routes to the ultimate ends that are different from those Shostakovich employed. The Arcadia Quartet's performances have the feel of a mission accomplished, and the group puts across the emotional content of these works in full spectrum. One awaits further releases in the series, but interested listeners might do well to start with this one. Chandos' Potton Hall sound is superb.
