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Friedrich Ernst Fesca: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1
CPO

Friedrich Ernst Fesca: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1

$53.99

Details

Composer
FESCA, FRIEDRICH ERNST
Artist
DIOGENES QUARTETT
Format
CD
Label
CPO
Released
Oct 29, 2013
Catalog #
777482-2
UPC
761203748228

About



F. E. FESCA String Quartets: No. 1 in E?, op. 1/1; No. 2 in F?, op. 1/2; No. 3 in B?, op. 1/3; No. 7 in a, op. 3/1; No. 8 in D, op. 3/2; No. 9 in E?, op. 3/3; No. 13 in d, op. 12; No, 15 in D, op. 34. Potpourri No. 2 B? for String Quartet, op. 11 • Diogenes Qrt • CPO 777482 (3 CDs: 207:02)


Reviewing a release (CPO 999869) of two symphonies by Friedrich Ernst Fesca in Fanfare 31:6, Patrick Rucker described him as a “symphonist,” and came to the conclusion that “though it’s doubtful that anyone would argue for an elevation of Fesca’s status above that of a Kleinemeister , this is music of considerable skill and charm.” I think something important wasn’t stated, there—namely, that Fesca wasn’t a symphonist. He was a concertmaster and first violinist by profession in court orchestras and chapels, but his compositional métier was chamber music, and especially the string quartet. As compared to the three symphonies he wrote very early in a highly successful career cut short by tuberculosis, he composed a total of 16 string quartets, not to mention four string quintets, four flute quartets, and a Flute Quintet.


And it was as a composer of string quartets that Carl Maria von Weber praised him in a published article in 1818. He notes that Fesca’s models were Mozart and Haydn, that he is “careful and richly spices” his harmonies, and “often modulates sharply, and swiftly, almost like Beethoven,” which is both shrewd and wide of the mark: both Beethoven and Fesca learned this from Haydn, and beyond Haydn, likely back to the more exploratory quartets of Gossec. Unlike Beethoven, he “feels too soft to … suddenly seize us with a bold, gigantic fist,” but “a certain intelligent deliberation marks his works, and is coupled with depth of feeling, avoids dryness, and brings about an uncommonly fine bearing in the character both of the whole and of the individual parts. He develops his ideas clearly and manifoldly, the four voices are independent.…” Weber notes a tendency towards what we term the quatuor brilliant , with a flashy first violin part, but that the other instruments aren’t demoted to secondary roles.


This first volume in a projected series of Fesca’s string quartets in general confirms Weber’s comments. I find little mature Mozart in the mix. On the other hand, Haydn appears less in the shape of harmonies and themes than in distant modulations, a tendency towards regular motivic transformation, and subtle elements held in common among all four movements of each work. Fesca also has the interesting trick (for lack of a better term) of crafting beautiful galant themes that he tags, either midway or at their conclusion, with short motifs. These latter can be varied and developed at will, as well as making a perfect way to bridge back to the themes, themselves, usually with several transformed elements.


Even the earliest works, believed to date from before or around his 20th year, demonstrate a mastery at handling what were by then the quartet’s movement structures that would remain in place for over a century. There is also at times a sense of playfulness at work—figures reversed, details that suddenly loom out of proportion, bridges that don’t end up where they traditionally should, thematic content from one movement inserted slyly into the accompaniment of another, etc.—though it almost never takes the form of Haydn’s famous false endings. Weber’s comment about four independent voices is only accurate in a limited sense. True, Fesca is willing to give the lead voice at any time to any of his instruments, but his greatest fault (at least, to modern ears) is a willingness at times to fall back on a lead with simple, repetitive bass accompaniment. That, too, was very characteristic of French quartets from the mid-18th through early 19th centuries.


What Weber in turn considers with typically Romantic regard for the individual as personally expressive reticence was probably just a pragmatic matter of writing for the largest audience without compromising standards; for make no mistake, Fesca was extremely popular during his lifetime. (His quartets continued to go through multiple editions after his death and through to the mid-century.) The one stylistic kicker in this three-disc set is the String Quartet No. 13 of 1819. It stands out from the rest both for its concentration on motivic transformation, even in the central movements, and for its tonal instability. Fesca as a rule enjoys exploring distant keys and recasting thematic content with different leads and slightly altered harmonies, but here he deliberately undercuts notions of the tonic not merely in bridges but within the themes themselves, leading to several moments of precarious tonality during the opening movement. Chromatic passages abound. It’s not later Schubert, by any means, but it is a curious sidelight that indicates one direction the composer might have pursued had he lived longer.


The Diogenes Quartet is a new name for me. They are all technically proficient if not expert, but slurs in some faster passagework commendably don’t cause them to take movements marked as presto or vivace any slower. Their tone is commendably lean, and their application of vibrato on held notes, and at cadences, warm. Founded in 1998, they apparently keep to a busy concert and recording schedule. (Their first volume of the Schubert quartets has recently been released on Brilliant Classics.) I’m glad to see that none of this has meant any less attention given to this music, and they perform it with the kind of loving detail one would expect to hear in works by the Bigger Names. They make an eloquent case for this music, and for the volumes that will follow.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Tracklist 33 tracks

  1. Disc 1
  2. 1 I. Allegro 10:52
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    10:52
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  3. 2 II. Adagio 07:04
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Adagio
    Duration
    07:04
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  4. 3 III. Menuetto 03:24
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Menuetto
    Duration
    03:24
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  5. 4 IV. Rondo 07:44
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Rondo
    Duration
    07:44
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  6. 5 I. Allegro 10:43
    Track
    5
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    10:43
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  7. 6 II. Andante con moto 04:34
    Track
    6
    Title
    II. Andante con moto
    Duration
    04:34
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  8. 7 III. Scherzando 02:22
    Track
    7
    Title
    III. Scherzando
    Duration
    02:22
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  9. 8 IV. Allegro non troppo 10:52
    Track
    8
    Title
    IV. Allegro non troppo
    Duration
    10:52
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  10. 9 Potpourri No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 11 08:21
    Track
    9
    Title
    Potpourri No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 11
    Duration
    08:21
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  11. Disc 2
  12. 1 I. Allegro 06:28
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    06:28
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  13. 2 II. Andantino 06:24
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Andantino
    Duration
    06:24
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  14. 3 III. Poco presto 03:51
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Poco presto
    Duration
    03:51
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  15. 4 IV. Rondo 07:45
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Rondo
    Duration
    07:45
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  16. 5 I. Allegro 06:02
    Track
    5
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    06:02
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  17. 6 II. Andante con moto 04:26
    Track
    6
    Title
    II. Andante con moto
    Duration
    04:26
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  18. 7 III. Menuetto: Allegro 04:02
    Track
    7
    Title
    III. Menuetto: Allegro
    Duration
    04:02
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  19. 8 IV. Finale: Allegro molto 05:33
    Track
    8
    Title
    IV. Finale: Allegro molto
    Duration
    05:33
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  20. 9 I. Allegro moderato 08:39
    Track
    9
    Title
    I. Allegro moderato
    Duration
    08:39
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  21. 10 II. Scherzo: Presto - Trio 03:19
    Track
    10
    Title
    II. Scherzo: Presto - Trio
    Duration
    03:19
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  22. 11 III. Andante con moto 04:20
    Track
    11
    Title
    III. Andante con moto
    Duration
    04:20
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  23. 12 IV. Finale: Presto 04:05
    Track
    12
    Title
    IV. Finale: Presto
    Duration
    04:05
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  24. Disc 3
  25. 1 I. Allegro moderato 10:11
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegro moderato
    Duration
    10:11
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  26. 2 II. Larghetto 05:46
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Larghetto
    Duration
    05:46
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  27. 3 III. Menuetto 07:45
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Menuetto
    Duration
    07:45
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  28. 4 IV. Finale: Allegretto 08:30
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Finale: Allegretto
    Duration
    08:30
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  29. 5 I. Allegro 06:33
    Track
    5
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    06:33
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  30. 6 II. Andantino 05:00
    Track
    6
    Title
    II. Andantino
    Duration
    05:00
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  31. 7 III. Scherzo: Vivace 03:59
    Track
    7
    Title
    III. Scherzo: Vivace
    Duration
    03:59
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  32. 8 IV. Finale: Allegro 05:26
    Track
    8
    Title
    IV. Finale: Allegro
    Duration
    05:26
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  33. 9 I. Allegro 06:57
    Track
    9
    Title
    I. Allegro
    Duration
    06:57
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  34. 10 II. Adagio 04:58
    Track
    10
    Title
    II. Adagio
    Duration
    04:58
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  35. 11 III. Scherzo: Presto 04:51
    Track
    11
    Title
    III. Scherzo: Presto
    Duration
    04:51
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet
  36. 12 IV. Finale: Allegro molto 05:31
    Track
    12
    Title
    IV. Finale: Allegro molto
    Duration
    05:31
    Composer
    Friedrich Ernst Fesca
    Ensemble
    Diogenes Quartet