In 1827, when writing his Quartet in A minor, Op.13, the eighteen-year-old Mendelssohn was especially interested in Beethoven’s late quartets – at a time when these works were generally written off as ‘confused fantasies of a deaf musician’. In Mendelssohn's A minor quartet the debt to Beethoven is evident in the important role of polyphonic techniques, and particularly in the focus on cyclical connections between movements.
Ten years after the Op. 13 quartet, Mendelssohn composed the three quartets that make up his Op. 44. The D major quartet that closes the present disc was the last of these to be completed, but on publication, Mendelssohn placed it as the first in the set.
Mendelssohn also wrote four individual movements for string quartet. These were gathered together and published posthumously with the opus number 81, and on this second volume of their complete Mendelssohn cycle the Escher Quartet perform two of these pieces, both conceived in August 1847, only a couple of months before the composer’s death.
The first volume in the Eschers' series, released in April 2015, has been warmly received by the critics, with the internet site Pizzicato describing it as 'a noteworthy addition to the Mendelssohn discography'.
Reviewds:
The Eschers offer eloquent, full-blooded playing, with spacious tempos, earthy rhythms and rich, dug-in sound. Nothing is rushed or skittered over - and this is notably rewarding in music where an over-precious surface can risk missing the point…the four players offer a beautiful blend of individuality and accord, and BIS's famous SACD sound quality lets them gleam and glow.
– BBC Music Magazine
This young American group respond particularly vividly to the ebullience of the D major Quartet. Digging into the upward arpeggio with which it launches with infectious glee, while the first movement's coda is uproariously dispatched. Also impressive is their combination of finely honed interaction and a sense of playfulness.
Having made numerous recordings for BIS both as a clarinettist and as a conductor, Michael Collins had yet to offer us one of the masterpieces of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Quintet. Here he performs alongside the Escher Quartet, whose latest recording devoted to Janacek's quartets (BIS-2670) has earned critical acclaim. While the combination of clarinet and string quartet offers rich potential, Mozart's glorious clarinet quintet cast a long shadow that few composers dared to enter. Composed at the twilight of his career, Brahms's quintet is an elegiac masterpiece. It radiates aching nostalgia and a poignant sense of lost love, ultimately settling into a melancholy serenity. It's emotional directness is occasionally surprising yet never sacrifices subtlety. Max Reger modelled his own Clarinet Quintet on those by Mozart and Brahms. In this final composition before his untimely death, Reger pushes tonal limits without compromising structure. Seamlessly integrating the clarinet, he creates a beautifully balanced ensemble capable of both powerful outbursts and delicate textures. Straddling the dawn of the 20th century, Reger's remarkably rich work pays profound homage to the past.
By 1896, at the age of twenty-five, Alexander Zemlinsky was one of the rising stars in the Viennese musical firmament. His first opera had been written, he had won a number of awards, and he had earned the support of Johannes Brahms. In July of the same year he began writing his First String Quartet, a work of sweeping lyricism, rich dance patterns, and self-confidence, couched within the bounds of a relatively conventional palette. Seventeen years later he began his Second String Quartet. Kaleidoscopic in effect, mood, and technical demands, and redolent of the music of the new century led by his brother-in-law Arnold Schoenberg it was to place Zemlinsky securely in the European avant-garde.
"The first instalment of the Escher Quartet's survey of Zemlinsky appeared last year. This second disc is as impressive, and includes a superb performance of the Second Quartet, one of Zemlinsky's greatest and most radical achievements. The Eschers sustain the huge span of music magnificently, while making sure that every tiny detail of Zemlinksy's meticulous string writing is heard."
This new release is the final disc in the Escher String Quartet’s traversal of Mendelssohn’s string quartets. The Strad called the first installment “A deeply rewarding release… and by any standards a distinguished one.” Later the same magazine made the sequel its recommendation in the November issue of 2015. Mendelssohn’s final quartets, Nos 5 and 6, are featured here alongside his Capriccio and Fugue. The Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 was a special work in the composer’s eyes. The work was written in response to the unexpected death of his beloved sister, Fanny. The piece was published posthumously, as Mendelssohn suffered a number of strokes and died a month after premiering the piece.
Founded in 2005, the Escher String Quartet is still a young ensemble as string quartets go. It has nevertheless become established as one of the most exciting quartets around, both in its home country, the U.S.A., and elsewhere, recently being shortlisted for a BBC Music Magazine Award. With their début disc on BIS, the Eschers launch a three-disc cycle of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, including the unnumbered String Quartet in E flat major and – on coming instalments – the four pieces for string quartet Op.81.
Reviews:
This is full-blooded quartet playing in the grand, classic manner; extrovert and eloquent. Rich tone, good balance and a particularly noteworthy expressiveness from the first violin, Adam Barnett-Hart, who offers that rare ability not only to sing but also to speak through the instrument.
– BBC Music Magazine
The Escher are fervent advocates of the E flat Quartet, imbuing the slow movement with a luxuriant warmth. There's no doubting the players' musicianship or technical ability, which are caught with admirable immediacy.
–Gramophone
The Eschers sound warm, relaxed and responsive to all of Mendelssohn’s expressive nuances. They lavish full, red-blooded tone on the slow movement of the genial Quartet No 1, and in the restless Quartet No 4 they keep the momentum striving forward, with first violinist Adam Barnett-Hart spinning long, seamless phrases.
Internationally renowned flutist Carol Winsenc joins forces with the Escher String Quartet, Tanya Dusevic Witek also on flute, and pianists Stephen Gosling and Emile Naoumoff to present this dynamic recording of the compositions of Yuko Uébayashi. The opening piece, Misericordia pour flûte et quatuor à cordes was composed for Carol Wincenc. Hailed "Queen of the Flute" (New York Magazine) at the outset of her, now, brilliant 48 year career, flutist Carol Wincenc was First Prize Winner of the (sole) Walter W. Naumburg Solo Flute Competition, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient from the National Flute Association, the National Society of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Music, and Distinguished Alumni Awards from Manhattan School of Music and the Brevard Music Center. During the past two seasons she performed, recorded and gave masterclasses as an exclusive Burkart Flutes Artist in Beijing, Shenyang, Seoul, Warsaw, Prague, Venice, Nice, and Thessoloniki.
Alexander Zemlinsky’s four numbered string quartets span some four decades, moving from the conservatism of his Brahms-inspired youth to the experimental works of his mature years. Written just after the Lyric Symphony (Naxos 8.572048), the Third Quartet is constructed in a cool, austere language far removed from the emotional, expressionistic atmosphere of the Second Quartet. The Fourth Quartet, written in memory of Alban Berg, is a fitting conclusion to an important body of work bridging the Romantic world of the nineteenth century to the modern age of the twentieth. Quartets Nos 1 and 2 will follow on Naxos 8.573088.
‘Full-blooded quartet playing in the grand, classic manner: extrovert and eloquent’ is how the performances of the Escher String Quartet were described in a review of their recording of Mendelssohn’s first and fourth quartets in BBC Music Magazine. After completing the three-disc cycle of Mendelssohn quartets – and earning further accolades, including a nomination to the 2017 BBC Music Magazine Awards – the quartet now returns with a programme which leaves plenty of opportunity for their special brand of playing. Composed between 1873 (Tchaikovsky) and 1893 (Dvorák), the three quartets gathered on this disc form a catalogue of unforgettable tunes and of emotions ranging from nostalgia to the most infectious joy. Each of the three composers wrote more than one quartet – Dvorák’s list of works includes as many 14! – but the ones recorded here are by far their best-loved. A contributing fact is surely that they all three include slow movements that tug at every listener’s heartstrings. Especially Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile and Borodin’s Notturno have become favourites in their own right, and exist in arrangements for every possible combination of instruments. But there is more to these works than the slow movements: throughout each quartet there is a wealth of melodic invention, rhythmic vitality and lyric fleetness which the Escher’s know how to exploit to the full.
While the concept of the programmatic and autobiographical quartet seems to have been introduced by Beethoven, nowhere has it been taken up more forcefully than in the Czech lands, as the works presented here attest. Leoš Janáček’s first quartet, subtitled ‘Kreutzer Sonata’, is based on a novella by Leo Tolstoy, which deals with such subjects as marriage, adultery and murder, all of which are evoked here by highly expressive music. The second quartet, the last major work he completed, is subtitled ‘Intimate Letters’. The special feature of this unique and miraculous quartet, full of love songs and eruptions, is the intense and euphoric expression of the composer’s inspirational and unrequited passion for a young woman.
Pavel Haas, who studied with Janáček in Brno in the 1920s, composed his second string quartet subtitled ‘From the Monkey Mountains’ in 1925. Although the composer claims that he intended to evoke ‘pleasant summer holidays in the country’, it seems that the work also evokes a love story. A surprise is in store for us in the final movement, entitled ‘A Wild Night’: percussion is added to the string quartet and contributes to the jazzy atmosphere. It is played here by the Scottish virtuoso Colin Currie.
REVIEW:
The Escher’s Janáček is highly recommended, especially to those of you who have not yet become dedicated Janáček freaks; those who have will need a variety of approaches to these highly charged quartets. The Haas should be a keeper for everybody.
