Brilliant have done well by Zemlinsky with entries for his lieder
and
Lyric
Symphony all from the DG treasury as indeed is this set. The
would do well to license the
complete Conlon Zemlinsky
from EMI and the complete operas from Capriccio. They would make
two invaluable offerings in a market not spoilt for Zemlinsky
options.
The competition for the set in hand is from two separately available
discs from Nimbus and a
Chandos
box from 2002. The LaSalle were a byword for elite playing in
the 1970s and 1980s and this analogue cycle was feted on its first
appearance as was their 1970s
Schoenberg
box for DGG. It still sounds superb – very forwardly positioned
with the microphones in the midst of the life of the quartet sound
rather than back in the hall. Nimbus and Chandos have a less close-up
immediate balance. Early Zemlinsky has a language akin to that
of Brahms and mature Dvorák; do not expect voluptuous expressionism
from the First Quartet. It is given a vivid outing all the same.
That said the LaSalle seem much more at home with the Second Quartet
which evinces music in a style more subtly nuanced. Dissonance
suggestive of fury is admitted as is torment – each in equal measure.
Even the repose of the
Moderato is clouded, uncertain and
the
Schnell (which seems slow to me) is a skeletal wintry
chase. The finale is emotionally and texturally dense though there
is some remission in the
Langsam but this is not the rest
that comes with assured confidence. There are always riders and
qualifications, joys are taken brusquely and affection is always
embattled. The haloed peace of the final segment seems won from
exhaustion and sleep rather than waking contentment. The Third
Quartet is muscular but without the torrid passions of earlier
works. It is jaunty, emotionally cool, not short on energy. Once
again that super-close recording takes you right into the playing
experience. The last quartet was intended as a memorial to Alban
Berg and is impressively weighted with grey skies and a sustained
down-beat. Even the breathtakingly impressive hailstone furies
of the Burlesque is unremitting in its abnegation of joy. The
playing here is again magnificent.
The Apostel quartets have been recorded complete by
Cybele
but here as a taster for that 3 CD set is the intense 12-tone
First. The music of Hans Erich Apostel has not caught on – at
least not yet. It is in this case much more dissonantly Schoenbergian
than even the Zemlinsky 2. Like the Zemlinsky 4 it was written
as a tribute to Berg. If you like the
Burlesque of the
Zemlinsky 4 you will find plenty to like in the Apostel’s
Presto.
Apostel also wrote a Second Quartet op. 26 dating from 1956. The
set is rounded out with a compact essay by Erik Levi.
Rob Barnett
LaSalle Quartet (Walter Levin (violin I); Henry W Meyer (violin
II); Peter Kamnitzer (viola); Jack Kirstein (cello)) 
