Classical Music

Electrifying clarinetist Eli Eban and the Alexander String Quartet celebrate the two masterpieces widely considered the preeminent works in their form: the clarinet quintets by Mozart and Brahms. Eric Bromberger writes: “Composers have been drawn to the combination of clarinet and string quartet ever since the clarinet began to take shape in the eighteenth century. The mellow sound and agility of the clarinet make it an ideal complement to the resonant warmth and harmonic richness of the string quartet, and the range of composers who have written for this pairing is extraordinarily diverse, including Weber, Meyerbeer, Reger, Busoni, Hindemith, and — more recently — Carter and Widmann. Yet all these compositions, varied as they are, exist within the shadow of the two towering masterpieces composed for clarinet and string quartet, the quintets of Mozart and Brahms. Those two quintets are invariably paired in recordings, as they are on this album. And it is quite right that they should be. They are two of the finest chamber works by two of the greatest composers, and there are many parallels between them: both were written late in their creators’ lives, both were inspired by contact with a particular clarinetist, and both beautifully integrate the quite different sonorities of clarinet and string quartet. Neither work is in any way valedictory, yet — coming near the end of each composer’s life — they represent some of the most refined and expressive music of Mozart and Brahms.”

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

With their latest release of “Locale” from Foghorn Classics, the Alexander String Quartet presents brand new accounts of two of Antonín Dvorák’s most enduringly popular chamber works. The “American” String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 from 1893 was written during the composer’s extended retreat from New York City to the rural “Czech” community of Spillville, on the Turkey River in northeastern Iowa. The ASQ plumbs the rich and reflective “outdoor” nuances of this exquisitely crafted master­piece. And the miraculous pianist Joyce Yang joins the Alexanders once again for this recording of the jubilant Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81 from 1887, composed at the composer’s country home amidst Bohemia’s woods and fields in Vysoka, just a little south of Prague. These two works are among the composer’s most expressively articulate chamber works. Both are profoundly influenced by their geographic “locale” and are, perhaps, exemplars of the sophisticated duality of the transatlantic experience of the late 19th century, embracing the nostalgia of the traditional bucolic ideal and the urbane sophistication of the imminent new age. Eric Bromberger’s accompanying notes and commentary provide illuminating musical and historical context, not least some of Dvorak’s own thoughts on the American-ness of his quartet. This is the third release on Foghorn Classics celebrating the inimitable collaboration between the Alexanders and Yang. Earlier releases in­­clude the Brahms and Schumann Quintets and, most recently, the Mozart Piano Quartets. Their combined concert repertoire, among several other standard and modern works, now includes a brilliant new and much-lauded quintet from the American composer Samuel Carl Adams, commissioned to help celebrate a decade of joyful collaborative music-making.

MENDELSSOHN + SCHUMANN

Mozart’s string quintets represent "some of his most sophisticated musical thinking … wonderful music, exhilarating to hear” (from the liner notes by Eric Bromberger). With this 3-CD set, the Alexander String Quartet and Paul Yarbrough complete their Mozart compendium.

The Alexander String Quartet and guitarist William Kanengiser form a dynamic collaboration that explores the music of Sting, Led Zeppelin, John Dowland and The Beatles by way of contemporary composers Ian Krouse, Dušan Bogdanovic and Leo Brouwer. In this project, William Kanengiser and the Alexander String Quartet pay tribute to a group of English musicians who conquered the musical world with their revolutionary explorations. From the Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland to the pop/rock icons Sting, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, these artists made a lasting impact far from the shores of their small island. Their music served as inspiration for a set of compositions for guitar and string quartet by the talented composers Ian Krouse, Dušan Bogdanovic and Léo Brouwer. It is especially appropriate that the guitar sits squarely at the center of these works, as the plucked string was the primary musical voice of these British innovators.

Classical Music

MENDELSSOHN String Quartet in a, op. 13 1. Octet in E?, op. 20 1,2. SCHUBERT Quartettsatz in c, D 703 1 • 1 Afiara String Quartet; 2 Alexander String Quartet • FOGHORN 1995 (68:46)


Readers may recall my Fanfare 33:2 interview with the Alexander String Quartet and accompanying review of its recent Beethoven cycle. This newly received disc, however, allocates more than half of its playing time to another ensemble, one that I had not previously encountered, the Afiara String Quartet. Its members—Valerie Li and Yuri Cho, violins; David Samuel, viola; and Adrian Fung, cello—all hail from Canada. At present, the group is the graduate string quartet in residence at Juilliard, where the players serve as teaching assistants to the Juilliard String Quartet. Prior to this—and here’s where the connection to the Alexander String Quartet comes in—the Afiara Quartet was the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at San Francisco State University’s International Center for the Arts (ICA) from 2007 to 2009, SFSU being the Alexander’s home base since 1989. Formed in 2006, the Afiara String Quartet takes its name from the Spanish fiar , meaning “to trust,” a basic element vital to the depth and joy of its music-making.


I know that saying this yet again is bound to make me sound like a stuck needle in a record groove (you’ll have to explain that one to the grandkids), but say it I must. Almost without exception, every recently formed string quartet I encounter seems to be even better than the one before it. I have no explanation for this other than speculation that today’s mainly American and European conservatories, music schools, and university music departments are experiencing a population boom in string players and are subjecting them to extremely rigorous training programs with exceptionally high standards for earning passing grades. It’s either that or one would have to believe that the gene pool of the general population has suddenly shifted to favor string players above all others.


That said, it should come as no surprise to hear me say that the Afiara’s Mendelssohn is stunning. It’s not just a matter of perfection in technical execution, which, by now, is as expected and un-noteworthy as the fact that the sun rises each morning in the east. Rather, it’s the interpretive imagination and musical expressiveness that impress as so remarkable.


Among Mendelssohn’s numbered string quartets, the A Minor, op. 13 (1827), was the first to be written, two years in fact before the E?-Major, op. 12, but the latter, being the first to be published, received the lower opus number. Recent issues have seen a high number of reviews of new Mendelssohn recordings—and not just of his string quartets—a circumstance that can be attributed to the 200th anniversary in 2009 of the composer’s birth.


The Afiara’s above-mentioned interpretive imagination and musical expressiveness make their mark in so many ways—from the control and gradation of dynamics to the seamless layering of Mendelssohn’s cascaded phrases—but none more impressive and thrilling than the handling of the closing section in the first movement’s exposition (listen starting at 3:14). Bartók himself would have been proud to write such insect-swarming music. It sounds like the buzzing of an angry colony of bees whose hive has been poked with a stick. I’ve heard many quartet ensembles play this passage, but the Afiara definitely cranks up the sting and zing factor. If you’re allergic, you’d better bring your EpiPen along.


If 1815 is the year in Schubert’s life often referred to as the annus mirabilis , one might coin the term annus abbandonato for the year 1820, for that was the year in which the composer began and then abandoned perhaps more works than in any other. The single movement for a string quartet in C Minor, known as the Quartettsatz , was one of them. Forty bars of an Andante survive, a strong indication that Schubert had set out to write a full four-movement work; but like so many other projects begun that year, it was left at the curb. That hasn’t stopped practically every quartet ensemble in existence from playing the completed Allegro assai, an extremely agitated, tightly-wound movement, which in its rapid passagework, superficially at least, resembles Mendelssohn’s writing. But where one senses Mendelssohn exercising his youthful high spirits and extraordinary compositional facility, one senses Schubert exhibiting nervous tics and the onset of his profound psychoneuroses. These do not go unnoticed by the Afiara players, who, even in moments of lyrical relief, manage to convey the underlying anxiety.


There’s a saying that the perfect is the enemy of the good. So what might be the friend of the perfect? Well, that’s easy. It’s the Alexander String Quartet joining the Afiara String Quartet for what may well be the most glorious and exhilarating performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet I’ve yet to hear, live or on record. The Scherzo alone will leave you breathless.


Recorded in September and December of 2008 at St. Stephen’s Church in Belvedere, Calif., the sound is state-of-the-art. For me, this disc is manna for the soul, and it’s going to take some doing to knock it off my 2010 Want List. The CD can be purchased directly from foghornclassics.com or from afiara.com—the “www.” is no longer required. What is required is that you purchase this disc post-haste.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

The award-winning Alexander String Quartet joins with acclaimed mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich in this world premiere recording of some of Mahler’s great orchestral Lieder — transcribed for voice and string quartet by Zakarias Grafilo. Commissioned by Lieder Alive! these exquisite transcriptions combine the lushness of the orchestral versions with the intimacy of chamber music — and the result is transcendent. Kindra Scharich has performed more than 50 art songs in 10 languages and sung over 30 roles in the lyric mezzo opera repertoire. Recording projects include Beethoven, Schumann and the complete non-Portuguese song repertoire of the great Brazilian composer Alberto Nepomuceno. A dedicated recitalist with a deep love of chamber music, she has performed and premiered numerous works by living composers. The Alexander String Quartet’s discography includes major cycles by Bartok, Kodaly, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. An important advocate of new music, with over 35 commissions and premieres, they have performed on five continents. Directors of the Instructional Program of the Morrison Chamber Music Center at San Francisco State University, ASQ is the subject of an award-winning documentary “Con Moto: The Alexander String Quartet.”

Immaculate professionalism … huge and telling ensemble experience, instrumental mastery practically faultless … Classical elegance and textural clarity.

This triple-CD set was originally published in 2004, but has recently been reissued, presumably to coincide with the Alexander String Quartet's newest CD, a not altogether inspiring collection of not altogether inspired arrangements of music by George Gerswhin and Jerome Kern.
 
The ASQ cannot go wrong with Mozart, though, and they do not. This is Mozart arguably at his finest in six works of sparkling imagination, style and technique, inspired by the six Quartets op.33 with which Haydn had recently opened new musical doors. Three years separate the first and last, an indication that Mozart spent a for him unusually long time working on them, a fact he confirmed in his dedication to Haydn when they were published in 1785.
 
In the last few years the ASQ have made many recordings for Foghorn Classics - to date there have been some 15 releases, including several double- or triple-discs. Their most important recordings have been the complete Quartets both of Beethoven, twice - with the current line-up for Foghorn on CD-2005 and with three-quarters the same ensemble in the Nineties for Arte Nova Classics - and of Shostakovich, on Foghorn again (CD-1988, CD-1991). Needless to say, each cycle met with considerable acclaim.
 
Individually, Mozart's 'Haydn' Quartets have been recorded countless times by every string quartet worth its salt. More importantly, there have also been numerous cycles of the six together, with or without additional works, and some of these are indisputably better deals than this Foghorn, which is dear by any standards - the equivalent, in fact, of three full-price singles. To cite merely top-rankers: the Alban Berg Quartet (7 CDs, EMI 5855812; alternatively, 4 CDs on Teldec 995495), the Emerson Quartet (3 CDs, DG 431797), the Melos Quartet (3 CDs, DG 415870), the Hagen Quartet (3 CDs, DG 471024 or 7 CDs, DG 000649302), the Quatuor Ysaÿe (3 CDs, Decca 473963), the Amadeus Quartet (6 CDs, DG 001408002), the Talich Quartet (7 CDs, La Dolce Vita 100), the Chilingirian Quartet (5 CDs, CRD 5005), the Franz Schubert Quartet (5 CDs, Nimbus NI1778) and the Guarneri Quartet newly reissued on RCA (6 CDs, 1918042). A few of these boxed sets are available at half the Foghorn price or less. On the other hand, the Takács Quartet on Hungaroton (HCD 12983-85) play only the 'Haydn' Quartets at a price that is more eye-watering still than Foghorn's, and for all its brilliance, the Quartetto Italiano boxed set (8 CDs, Philips 416419) will likely be out of most mortals' price range.
 
Financial differentials aside, all the readings above have their own many strong points, with perceived weaknesses often coming down to aesthetics. The ASQ - who last year celebrated their 30th anniversary - are hard to fault in any regard: their professionalism is immaculate, their ensemble experience huge and telling, their instrument mastery practically faultless. They exhibit a Classical elegance and textural clarity that Haydn would surely have approved of. For those not on a budget, this is a safe purchase that will repay the outlay with hours of repeated pleasure.
 
Sound quality is very good indeed, as it invariably is at the AAAL: intimate, yet spacious, with all four instruments beautifully defined. The accompanying booklet is excellent - notes by Eric Bromberger provide just the right amount of detail for everyman and expert alike, though in English only.
 
Rather wantonly, each CD ends with a literal foghorn. These are thankfully on separate tracks!
 
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

GERSHWIN Porgy and Bess: Suite. Lullaby. KERN All the Things You Are. The Way You Look Tonight. Bill. The Song Is You. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Once in a Blue Moon • Alexander Qrt; Joan Enric Lluna (cl) • FOGHORN 2008 (48:15) Available at FoghornClassics.com or ASQ4.com

This is a delightful album. So often classical artists’ forays into the great American songbook prove disappointing. Here, however, we have music superbly crafted for chamber ensemble. Carl Davis’s arrangement of Porgy and Bess selections for clarinet and string quartet is especially apropos, since Gershwin at the end of his life was considering writing a string quartet. Davis worked from Jascha Heifetz’s marvelous versions of these songs for violin and piano, then added cadenzas for clarinet to link the songs. Joan Enric Lluna plays with the full, rich tone of a virtuoso classical clarinetist, rather than the reedier sound of a jazz artist. In “Summertime,” the strings produce an appropriately sultry background, while Lluna riffs brilliantly on the tune. He gets a bluesy sound in “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.” In “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” Lluna phrases intimately, as if he is singing to his beloved. Gershwin’s friend Oscar Levant called this song “Porgy in Vienna,” and this instrumental version with its elegantly played string solos is redolent of Lehár. For “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” the ensemble’s sound is insinuating and ironic, with a somewhat acid tone. It’s a flashy ending to a rewarding work.

Jerome Kern made arrangements of six of his songs in the 1940s that his assistant Charles Miller transcribed for string quartet. The Gordon String Quartet, founding ensemble of the Music Mountain chamber music series in Connecticut, recorded the songs in 1949, and it is a mystery why they have not entered the string-quartet repertory. For listeners who think of Kern basically as a tunesmith, the sustained invention of these arrangements may come as a surprise. They are beautifully made and immensely sophisticated. All the Things You Are has a Brahmsian feel, and is tenderly played. The extensive solo lines in The Way You Look Tonight are reminiscent in manner of Borodin’s Second Quartet. The song makes me think of my lady friend, which is as it should be. The Alexander’s playing in Bill has a wistful quality that does justice to the meaning of the song. The mood borders on the teary-eyed, but only just. The Song Is You features an extended Beethovenian introduction, with hints of another Kern song I can’t identify. The tune itself, played over a swooning cello part, has an operetta feel reminiscent of Sigmund Romberg. As an introduction to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Kern employs another song, Yesterdays. In the main tune, the playing captures the sense of regret in the song, although given its risible lyrics I prefer to hear it in an instrumental version. Finally, Once in a Blue Moon frequently sounds like Grieg, another master tunesmith and miniaturist.

The program ends with Gershwin’s early Lullaby. The Alexander’s basic tempo here is wonderful, just bluesy enough. The B section possesses the cozy warmth appropriate to a lullaby. Veteran producer Judith Sherman has provided exceptional sound engineering, greatly adding to the luster of these fine performances. If your interest is piqued to hear classical artists engage with these songwriters, I would recommend Kiri Te Kanawa’s albums of Gershwin and Kern songs, plus Ralph Grierson and Artie Kane’s two-piano album of Gershwin. For those who are not put off by an easy-listening sound, arranger and conductor Paul Weston’s The Columbia Album of Jerome Kern is a marvelous compendium, with extensive notes by a young Stephen Sondheim. I hope the Alexander’s CD reaches the hands of other enterprising string quartets. The Davis and Kern arrangements really belong in the concert repertory, and I can’t think of a better advocate for them than the performances on this album.

FANFARE: Dave Saemann