Schwarze Messe
Arthur Vincent Lourié (1892-1966)
String Quartet No. 1 (1915)
Christoph Staude (b. 1965)
String Quartet No. 1 (1986)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Messe Noire (1912-13) (Sonata No. 9 transcribed for quartet by G. Pesson)
Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979)
String Quartet No. 2 in ¼ tones, Op. 18 (1930-31)
Asasello Quartet
rec. 2019-21, Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Cologne
First recording (Scriabin)
GENUIN GEN22745 [71]
This recording was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Asasello Quartet, as they could not give concerts during the lockdowns. The ensemble was formed from students from Russia, Switzerland, Poland and Germany all studying at the Basel Music Academy with Walter Levin and Hatto Beyerle; they completed their studies with the Alban Berg Quartet at the Cologne University of Music. They have since established a reputation for non-mainstream chamber music in the classical, Romantic and modern repertoires and have been awarded grants allowing them to pursue original concepts and concertizing non-mainstream musical projects.
Arthur Lourié was a leading musical figure in Russia, a ‘dissident’ at the St Petersburg Conservatoire who rejected Rimsky-Korsakov’s teaching methods and turned to both sacred chant and futurism, writing poetry and music. He was a colourful figure, giving talks accompanied by his own music at the ‘Stray Dog’ celebrated café in the Tsarist capital during the Great War. His finest works are from this period and include song cycles, piano pieces, and this quartet. The opening idiom of the first movement, Très Lent, is dark, solemn, yet powerful; the violin tries to introduce a bright idea but is broken off by the lower strings, arguments develop which are sharp and bitter and the discourse between the instruments emerges against motoric themes, then enters into a nocturnal passage evocative of Bartók. In the second movement, Grave, the idiom is quiet and reflective, as if searching for something precious that is broken by a stressful, agonised finale dying away into silence.
Christophe Staude is a composer close to the musicians of the Asasello Quartet; they write, ‘We felt understood by Christophe Staude because he belonged to a minority of well-read people with a love of everything Slavic, who was not only familiar with the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov but also with the Russian and Polish languages. And language thinks for you. It is always about more than “just”, vocabulary.’ This was the work that the Asasello Quartet first adopted as a repertoire piece in their programmes twenty years ago. Dating from 1986), its opening movement presents an intense dissonance and attack with motoric sharp images, accompanied by shrieks from the violins - Mit grosster Wucht – attaca - while in the second movement, (no title) the drama settles down with lengthy phrases on the strings, in an almost mesmerising harmony. The third movement, Rasch. opens dramatically with quite stunning virtuosity; in the fourth - Ruhig, desolate-attaca - the composer explores procedural gimmickry, and Bartok-like nocturnal sounds, while in the fifth movement, (no title) arresting shrieks explode on the strings in rather ugly, frightening sounds, which disappear like a dying engine.
The ensemble say that ‘they want to tell a bit of quartet history without words, which has more to do with our inner development than with the progression of our career.’ Thanks to the arrangement by Gérard Pesson, ‘Alexander Scriabin’s sombre inner mood while composing the ‘Black Mass’, a work originally written for piano […] connects all the pieces on this recording, [and] can be brought to life wonderfully by four musicians. In terms of the search for meaning and identification as performers who, […] have also gotten to know the darker side of life […]. It is a singular but powerful work for our anniversary, and the very first recording of the string quartet version of the “Black Mass”.’
If Scriabin wanted to write a string quartet, he would surely have composed one, but here, we have an arrangement for string quartet of one of Scriabin’s darkest pieces from his late years. Written in a continuous single movement, the ‘Black Mass’ Ninth Sonata opens quietly in a rather dreary passage, constrained in melody with an underlying tragically painful idiom evocative of Debussy, and of almost agonisingly tragic harmonies. Certainly it epitomises the musical and emotional centre of the four works in this recording - and one can listen to it over and over again to this quartet’s outstanding playing of it.
Ivan Wyschnegradsky was one of the most brilliant composers of the Russian avant-garde; however, he followed a quite different path from fellow composers such as Roslavets, Lourié, and Matyushin. Initially, he studied mathematics in St Petersburg (his grandfather was a Minister of Finance), and composition with Nikolay Sokolov and graduated as a lawyer. His debut piece Andante religioso funebre was premiered at Pavlovsk and praised by Cesar Cui. Among his first works written in semi-tones was Le Journee de l’existence (1916-7). He also experimented in quarter-tones and his first completed piece was Quatre fragments for piano dates from 1918, while his major work was L’Evangile Rouge for voice, and two pianos is from 1920. His symphony Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra was written in 1929-30. He emigrated to Paris in 1918 and met with Alois Haba, later Oliver Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux and Pierre Boulez, and wrote in six-tones, twelve-tones, and mixed micro-intervals.
In his early days he was influenced by Scriabin and explored quarter-note scales, and his music offers a lighter, less dark idiom than the other composers on this disc. Wyschnegradsky’s quartet opens - Allegro scherzando - on a perky idea and a complex fast tempo, with a theme highlighted by the solo cello and then a motoric tempo while the solo violin introduces briefly a nocturnal, insect-like theme (hinting of the future Shostakovich) with an aggressive tempo. The second movement, Andante, opens on a lyrical violin idea interrupted by a shuddering theme leading to a dramatic close. The third movement, Allegro risoluto, opens brightly with an attractive idea, followed by a rocking rhythm and then a harshly relentless theme heard vividly on the viola and cello (suggestive of Bartók), and a reprise of the opening idea.
The colourful booklet notes are in English and German, with a Russian translation available on QR code, and a general article about the music and the artists. This CD is an outstanding release by a top-class ensemble in a programme that should be heard by those interested in the less familiar avenues of 20th-century music.
Gregor Tassie
