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Arabesque's survey
of Bloch's chamber music is not to be
ignored. The company's attention to
every detail is impressive indeed. For
example in all six cases the notes are
by Suzanne Bloch, the composer's daughter
and dedicatee of the Fifth Quartet.
If Arabesque's Bloch
items have faded into the crowd it is
because they have been in the catalogue
for so long. Their strengths remain
undimmed and there has been no cause
for critics to winge as Arabesque have
kept them in their live list.
The Bloch discs from
Arabesque are catalogued here:-
Music for violin and piano: Vol. 1 (Weilerstein
Duo) Z6605
Music for violin and piano: Vol. 2 (Weilerstein
Duo) Z6606
String Quartet No. 1 Portland Quartet
Z6543
String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 Portland
Quartet Z6626
String Quartets Nos. 4 and 5 Portland
Quartet Z6627
Piano Quintets No. 1 and 2, Paul Posnak
(piano) Portland Quartet Z6618
Sadly Volume 1 of the
Bloch quartets series was not available
to me at the time of writing. Perhaps
later.
Suzanne Bloch in her
liner notes mentions that the Second
Quartet was completed when the composer
was sixty and emerging from a period
of crushing depression. The Portland
present the work without flinching or
turning away from its sometimes vicious
energy or from its morose expressionistic
tendencies which are more than apparent
in the first movement. The music leads
us through a darkling plain, with plaintive
cries and supplications. The overcast
skies recall Barber's quartet writing
in Dover Beach. The start of the Andante
third movement recalls the work which
Bloch was studying at the time - Beethoven's
Eroica. The allegro molto flies
along with a guttural energetic signature
which is captured with honest fidelity
by the Portland and the Arabesque team.
Bloch finds peace of a sort in the work's
closing moments.
After too short a pause
the disc pitches into the start of the
Third Quartet. This is more positive-minded
music than the Second Quartet but couched
in a sometimes expressionistic style.
The music surges and pierces the emotional
fabric with a keenly-stropped poignancy.
The second movement, an adagio non troppo,
is of extraordinary concentration and
elusively moonlit mood. The Adagio has
some bibulous Hungarian touches. It
is given with unstinting passion and
almost physical impact by the Portland
Quartet. The composer cannot resist
some tough fugal writing at 5.00 onwards.
I am not sure it that works fully well
but a fluttered flourish of a peroration
does the trick very nicely. Triumphantly
performed by the Portlanders. It was
written for the Grillers who recorded
it. That recording has been reissued
by Dutton.
The second CD reviewed
here has the last two quartets. They
were written by a composer respectively
five years and three years from death.
The Fourth is in the conventional four
movements. The music, when at speed,
seems driven by desperation. More clam
and balm comes in the andante - one
often finds extraordinary artistic achievement
in Bloch's adagios and andantes. There
is a technical background 'rustle' at
the start of the finale - the first
time I noticed this - rather like the
sound of a dirty LP. It does not detract
from the music which is again morose
and becomes increasingly dodecaphonic
without going the whole hog. For the
last three minutes of this nine minute
movement the music emerges into a tonal
glow - bathed in the warmth of the late
sun.
The Fifth and last
quartet is in two movements. Again the
start of the Fifth comes after far too
short a pause - perhaps a second - after
the final note of the end of the Fourth
quartet has finished resonating. The
music is again haunted, at times desperate
but not a stranger to joy (I 4.11).
There is not the same 12-tone insurgency
you encounter in the Fourth but this
remains tough-spirited music. Stereo
spread is agreeably wide but without
the sense of a racked unnatural extrusion
of the soundstage. The best example
of the spread can be heard at the start
of the last movement of the Fifth. There
is some really grace-filled music in
this movement as if in memory of glamorous
ballrooms at one moment and desperate
deeds at another.
These quartets are
jewelled philosopher's stones inevitably
reflecting Bloch’s many years in intimate
contact with Bach's fugues and the Beethoven
quartets. These were works whose inner
workings he laid bare for year after
year of students at University of California
Berkeley from the 1940s onwards.
Certainly adherents
of the Bartók six should get
these discs. These are serious quartets,
not a trace of the serenade or divertimento
here. Currently Arabesque offer the
only complete series but any aspirants
will face very tough competition with
the Portland who readings strike me
as authoritative.
Bloch has been receiving
some long postponed attention these
last five years. At long last his turn-of-the-century
opera Macbeth has been recorded by Actes-Sud
and by Capriccio. Bis have several Bloch
discs. Recently Capriccio have brought
out a fresh recording of the Violin
Concerto. Four years ago the Timpani
recording conducted by David Shallon
revived works long out in the cold.
In all this activity let's not forget
these indispensable Bloch recordings.
Rob Barnett
Portland String Quartet (Stephen Kecskemethy,
violin; Ronald Lantz, violin; Julia Adams, viola;
Paul Ross, cello)