Here are three quartets from the radical early
1960s and one from a decade earlier by a revolutionary. Two are
by composers who lead the Polish avant-garde. The other two are
a leading Japanese composer and a wild and woolly frontier experimenter.
The music-making here is from the early days of the Lasalle. It
embodies finesse, elite craft, purity of expression and dedication.
Virtuoso attainment is demanded by these scores and the demands
are fully met by the Lasalle. The two movement Lutoslawski is
an exercise in mercurial fantasy, a slippery kaleidoscope of episodes
in motion, sinister, exciting, buzzing, creaking, shambling, sprinting
and suddenly caught up in mediation or in furious motion. The
Penderecki opens in salvoes of
col legno clicking and clattering,
spattering and ricocheting across the spectrum. It’s a compact
essay in shock staccato which finds a meditative yet equivocal
peace at the close. By contrast the Mayuzumi Prelude while certainly
written by a disciple of dissonance also incorporates the sounds
of Japanese traditional instruments and manners. Its mood is meditative
yet anxious. In addition to the liquid swerving pizzicato there
are cleanly spun and long held high notes from the violin. The
four movement Cage also has a faintly oriental tang mixed with
the characteristic ‘fall’ of Dowland’s instrumental lyrics. Indeed
much of this work has a faintly antiquarian grace and spirit which
when the music becomes animated can suggest a sympathy with Copland.
The sound is stunningly close yet not claustrophobic. The collection’s
analogue provenance is belied by the virtual silence from and
against which this music emerges. You still need a hardy pair
of ears and a resiliently receptive mind. There is much here to
stimulate if you persist. The Lasalle were after all the
de
luxe ensemble for such music well into the 1970s. This issue
is graced with a new and typically informative and thoughtful
note by Malcolm Macdonald.
Rob Barnett
Lasalle Quartet (Walter Levin (violin I); Henry W Meyer (violin
II); Peter Hamnitzer (viola); Jack Kirstein (cello)) 
