Gringolts String Quartet - Streichquintett / Metamorphosen - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Arnold Schoenberg's second string quartet - included on a previous by the Gringolts Quartet - is often used as a reference point when the emergence of atonality is discussed. That work, where Schoenberg in the fourth movement suddenly does away with a time signature, was composed in 1907, three years after his first work in the genre the String Quartet in D minor, Op. 7, a work which still has much in common with the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss. The D minor quartet is in one movement, but with four distinct sections which, according to a note left by the composer, chart a progression from 'rebellion' and 'depression' to 'quiet joy and the contemplation of rest and harmony' - a program reminiscent of the one Strauss had used in his recent tone poem Ein Heldenleben. Albeit tonal, the harmonic language is richly chromatic, pointing forward to the inevitable break in the second quartet. Some twenty years later, Schoenberg had developed his twelve-tone method, and his Third Quartet is an example of how he was using this to refresh traditional form schemes and contrapuntal textures, while at the same time counterbalancing the modern idiom with familiar features such as a slow variation movement and a rondo finale.

The three works here included are arrangements of two trios by Beethoven and of his Horn Sonata. These were made by the Bohemian virtuoso oboist Carl Khym, whose name sometimes appears as Chym. He was born about 1770 and was thus a more or less exact contemporary of Beethoven and seems to have been in the service of the Emperor. Little is known of his life, but he left a number of chamber music compositions and competent and effective arrangements of works by other composers, with the string quintet version of Beethoven's Clarinet Trio, Op. 11, appearing in Vienna and Pest in 1810/1811, and of the Horn Sonata, published in Bonn by Simrock in 1817. The arrangement of the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 2, seems to date from 1815. Nothing is known of Khym after 1819. In 1795 Beethoven published a set of three Piano Trios, dedicated to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, in whose house they were first performed, in the presence of Haydn, who had reservations about the possible reception of the third, an implied criticism to which the composer took exception. The second of the group, the Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2, makes a convincing string quintet. The first movement starts with a slow introduction, with the more decorative melodic elements now allotted to the violin, which opens the Allegro Vivace with a lively first subject leading to a reasonable division of labor between the other instruments of the quintet. The first violin introduces the second subject in the sonata-form movement, with it's repeated exposition, development and recapitulation. The characteristically sustained piano melody of the original work in the slow movement is aptly transferred to strings, it's opening theme repeated an octave higher, after which the first violin leads on to a secondary theme, both themes soon to return, with a brief excursion into the tonic minor key before the closing section. The Scher

Quatuor Diotima makes it's Pentatone debut with a recording of Györgi Ligeti's string quartets. While the second quartet from 1968 is an avantgarde classic, the first from 1953-54, InchMetamorphoses nocturnesInch, is often nicknamed Bartók's seventh quartet, pointing out the continuity between these two Hungarian master composers. Despite moments of nostalgia, it already possesses the ferocious, adventurous nature of the later quartet. In-between these two iconoclast works, the Andante and Allegretto from 1950 offers an intimate moment of repose. The members of Diotima long postponed recording Ligeti's string quartets, intimidated by their significance in music history and the demands they place on the players, but now the time has come to pursue this fascinating project and share it with the world. The quartet is fascinated by the cinematic qualities of Ligeti's music and it's use in films, including Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. The album cover pays homage to that iconic movie. Quatuor Diotima is one the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world today, and has worked in close collaboration with several of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century. Reflected in the mirror of today's music, the quartet projects a new light onto the masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries.