With its deeply rich but also highly transparent
recording and superlative performances this disc really is something
special. Janine Jansen has top billing, but the result is by no means
star-soloist with add-ons. Every player here is a leading exponent of
their instrument, and there is no question of the top line being spotlit
in terms of recorded balance, or of any kind of tussle of musical egos.
There is a joy and vibrancy in the playing throughout, and the results
are more the kind you would expect from an ensemble which has performed
together for years. Jansen has worked with Maxim Rysanov
before,
and I doubt any of these musicians are strangers to each other, collaborating
as they have in this case as part of the annual International Chamber
Music Festival Utrecht.
The string sextet version of Schoenberg’s
Verklärte Nacht
is inevitably something of a different animal to the more commonly recorded
string
orchestra version, and there are a few very decent versions around.
Talich Quartet on Calliope CAL5217 is not really one of these, being
by no means as atmospheric as Jansen & Co and with too much dodgy
intonation. There is a ‘classic’ recording with the Juilliard
String Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma/Walter Trampler on Sony but I have never
been that keen on the wobbly vibrato in this performance, and there
are one or two soggy moments when compared to the intensity of this
Decca version. Preferable is the Brandis Quartet on Nimbus NI5614 (see
review),
which has a gripping grit to the playing which enthrals throughout,
though without quite the light and shade nuances of the Decca recording
in hand. The Raphael Ensemble on Hyperion CDA 66425 come highly recommended
but I didn’t have this to hand for comparison.
If you don’t know
Verklärte Nacht, but are prepared
to give it a go for the sake of Ms Jansen, then you are in for a treat.
This is programme music based closely on a poem by Richard Dehmel which
is required reading, but it is also worth remembering that Schoenberg
had the hots for his future wife Mathilde von Zemlinsky at the time
he wrote the piece, so the romantic/erotic charge in this music is electric
even before we embark on the emotional journey taken by the poem. “Two
people are walking through a bare cold wood” is where it starts,
and they end up in a “high bright night”, having emerged
from a crisis of the most desperate of confessions and the warmest and
most poetic of acceptances. The poem is given in the booklet in German
as well as French and English translation, but if you allow these musicians
to take you by the hand they will prove as fine a guide to the narrative
as any I could imagine. This is a performance filled with potent atmosphere.
When the music reaches its moments of most impassioned climax and drama
you can guess what is going on - the cello converses with the violin
while sympathetic storms are created with almost symphonic weight, but
while there is agony and despair there are no relapses into hysteria.
This is a wild and disturbing ride, but one which your imagination can
follow with the greatest clarity, and all the more powerful for that.
Emotionally wrought, might it be an idea to save Schubert’s
String
Quintet in C major, D956 for another time? Perhaps not. Schoenberg’s
final “bright night” has already lifted us out of the dark
cold wood, and thus refreshed and in
deiner Seele keine Last
it makes for a very fine pairing. The
Quintet D956 is, like Vermeer’s
View of Delft, generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest
works in its genre. Once again, if you are coming to this music anew
then prepare to be stunned, moved, energised and royally entertained,
especially by this tremendous recording.
I’ve always had an affection for the Deutsche Grammophon recording
of the Melos Quartet with Rostropovich in this piece, and their sixteen
minute
Adagio still hits the spot every time. Yes, I’m
diving straight for the heart with this piece, since if the
Adagio
second movement doesn’t bring you into a different plane of existence
then there’s no point in having the rest. I have to admit liking
this movement genuinely slow and reflective, and the otherwise usually
wonderful Hagen Quartet with Heinrich Schiff, also on Deutsche Grammophon
seem entirely miss the point at a brisk 12:58. Seeing as we appear to
be doing a DG roundup, another ‘twixt and between version is the
La Salle Quartet with Lynn Harrell, which at 13:15 and with an excess
of jaw-clenching vibrato doesn’t do much for me at all. Timings
aren’t everything of course, but at 14:09 there is hope for this
Decca recording, and with Janine Jansen’s lovely phrasing and
a cool but expectant sustained accompaniment from the rest this works
very nicely in the magical first section. At 2:15 the tune recedes,
our imaginations keeping it alive while pizzicato grace those sustained
chords. These pizzicati can be a hazard but the effect here is good,
keeping fullness of tone and saving emphasis for crucial tensions and
cadences. The drama of the central section is kept in proportion to
the rest, maintaining that transparency of sound I appreciate so much
in the Schoenberg, while also not bumping the music into too high a
gear with regard to the tempo. This is turbulence, but those memories
of regret are still present. The transition at around eight minutes
is breathtaking, taking us, jaw already on the floor and tear ducts
barely contained, into Schubert’s tease - turning our faces to
greet the sky and allowing our skin to be warmed by the sun. When we
look back down we notice sparkling ripples on the gently undulating
water, and understanding begins to dawn through that rawness of grief
- still present and never to be forgotten, but bittersweet rather than
an all-consuming darkness. Yes, there’s all this and more to be
found in this performance.
Just to reassure everyone, the first movement also has it all, from
lyricism and wit to the gripping drama nobody expected from a piece
in C major. This
Allegro ma non troppo is the longest of the
work, and stands as a masterpiece in its own right - elevated by the
performance here to something rich and remarkable, with new things to
discover every time you hear it. The third movement is another life-enhancing
experience, bracingly physical at the opening
Scherzo and swelling
with enigmatic, unrequited emotions at the
Andante sostenuto
of the
Trio. These musicians get everything right, from intonation
and weight of balance in the harmonies to communication of Schubert’s
heightened emotional sensitivities. The final
Allegretto is a
skipping dance, but not taken superficially in this performance. Little
dissonances and Gottschalk-like moments of jazzy blueness are kicked
out with relish. None of the movements here are in any way disposable,
and this performance has raised my appreciation for this piece in its
entirety like no other.
Booklet notes are by Dutch broadcaster Paul Witteman and have a nicely
personal touch. Just pipped by Maria João Pires on
DG,
the 83+ minutes duration of this Decca disc make it a very good money/music
ratio value prospect. Even with such heavenly lengths this is the kind
of performance you sort of wish would go on forever, and I can guarantee
it will be one of my 2013 Recordings of the Year.
Dominy Clements
Masterwork Index:
Schubert
string quintet 
