It’s
good to see Hyperion giving coverage to some of Suk’s early
chamber works. In choosing the Nash Ensemble they have selected
musicians of practised authority in this sort of repertoire.
The Piano Quartet is Suk’s Op.1, written when he was in his
late teens. It has a bold forceful Dvořákian feel though
some of the passagework, especially in the first movement, can
be rather dogged. In the pleasingly resonant acoustic of Henry
Wood Hall the Nash Ensemble prove sure-footed advocates. Violist
Lawrence Power shines in the texture. One’s ear gets drawn back
to his contributions time and again not because his colleagues
are inferior but because of the particular tonal qualities he
evinces. The playing in the slow movement is warmly benign and
pianist Ian Brown shows his mettle here as indeed he does in
the finale where his sweep is impressive. But if one turns to
the augmented Suk Trio’s recording of 1992 (Supraphon) one finds
different qualities. They’re far more urgent in the first movement,
rubati are less extreme, and the limber, brilliantly youthful
playing arguably suits the tenor of the music rather better.
Accents are sharper as well, the dialogue more bibulous and
aggressive. For all the warmly lyric phrasing by the Nash Ensemble
the Czech group gives rather more weight at a slightly faster
tempo and more joined-up syntax. In the finale one finds the
eponymous Suks cleave to a more explicitly Dvořákian line
whereas the Nash sound rather more Schumannesque. It’s a valid
variance of approach though the Czech playing is crisper – against
which Brown is full of animation and drama.
The
Piano Quintet was dedicated to Brahms. There’s plenty of bite
in the Nash playing in the first movement but it’s ultimately
much straighter and less affectionately inflected than the Suk
Quartet and Pavel Štěpán in their classic account on the
same Supraphon disc as the earlier work. Try listening to the
violin and viola exchanges in the first movement to hear expression
vie with chaste restraint in the two recordings. The big difference
however is in the slow movement. The Nash goes for hymnal solicitude,
very attractively so with the strings-and-piano-as-harp texture,
but there is much greater tonal texture in the Czech performance,
a greater sense of urgency and a more intense feeling of dynamics,
as well as a nobler and more commanding profile. The Nash is
over two and a half minutes slower in this movement alone, especially
in the case in the lyric development where they do tend to perfume
the air slightly. The scherzo is fine in the new recording though
Brown isn’t as effective in the evenness of his trills as Štěpán
and the English group cedes to the Czechs in organisational
tightness. Similarly the Suk group takes the con fuoco instruction
and runs with it; the Nash are slower and just a touch more
pedestrian.
The
Four Pieces haven’t lacked for players over the years
though most fight shy of the integral set and dish up the last
one, the Burlesca. Marianne Thorsen and Ian Brown are commendably
straightforward here though they can’t match Josef Suk and Jan
Panenka. The older pairing know just how to vary and shade the
repeated material of the Quasi Ballata and even at a slower
tempo vest it with unceasing life. The Nash duo tends, in the
end, to lack the naturalness of phrasing that the Czechs bring
to the Appassionata second piece and the range of tonal resources
that they possess – as well as a certain rapport that only intimacy
can bring.
Some
of these differences are ones of emotive alignment and expression.
Some indeed will welcome the more languorous and romanticised
textures of the Nash ensemble. In fact they may make for complementary
recordings; the Czech’s furioso and espressivo to the English
group’s more becalmed charms. I know where my tempestuous money
goes but the Nash offers a warm and attractive alternative.
Jonathan
Woolf
for details
The Nash Ensemble: Marianne Thorsen (violin); Benjamin Nabarro (violin);
Lawrence Power (viola); Paul Watkins (cello); Ian Brown (piano)
