The 250th anniversary
of the birth of Joseph Martin Kraus
has been celebrated with some gusto
in and around Buchen, near his birthplace
and where he received his early education.
The programme of events for ‘Krausgedankjahr
2006’ can be seen at http://www.kraus-gesellschaft.de/index.htm.
Kraus is regularly
described as ‘little-known’ or ‘forgotten’.
Such epithets seem rather doubtfully
accurate, however, when one considers,
for example, how well he has been served
by the record companies in recent years.
Naxos have issued four volumes of his
symphonies: 8.553734, 8.554472, 8554777
and 8.555305 – see reviews (Kraus_symphonies4.htm;
KRAUS_symphonies.htm),
a volume of the ‘Complete Music for
Pianoforte’ (see review Kraus_piano.htm)
and a CD of all his German songs (see
reviews: Kraus_songs_8557452.htm;
Kraus_8557452.htm).
On Carus there is a
collection of his sacred music (Carus
83.142/000). There are other collections
of his symphonies on Capriccio (Capriccio
10 396 and 10 430). There are CDs of
the piano music, played by Ronald Brautigam,
on BIS 1319 and by Mario Martinoli on
Stradivarius STR 33967 . On Musica Sveciae
MSCD 415 is a collection of chamber
music: a piano trio, a violin sonata
and the flute quintet. There’s at least
one other disc of String Quartets on
Cavalli 224. And this is not a complete
list. It hardly sounds like the discography
of a ‘little-known’ and ‘forgotten’
composer. Do ‘forgotten’ composers have
a ‘gedankjahr’ dedicated to them?
The true position is
perhaps best described by W. Dean Sutcliffe
in the course of a review – in Eighteenth-Century
Music, 2:1, 2005 – of a new edition
of Kraus’s keyboard music:-
Even among many
comparable cases of later eighteenth-century
composers, the fate of Kraus has
been a curious one. He has long
been a figure to reckon with in
German-speaking Europe – a focus
for this reputation is provided
by the activities of the Internationale
Joseph Martin Kraus-Gesellschaft,
based in the town of Buchen where
he grew and up – and in Sweden,
where from 1781 he was in the service
of the court of Gustav III. In English-speaking
countries, on the other hand, he
perhaps registers even less than
many other figures of his time who
have been overwhelmed by the Viennese
Classical juggernaut.
The recent relative
abundance of recordings of Kraus’s work
make some kind of estimate of his work
possible – even for benighted anglophones.
A cultured man, who studied law and
philosophy, published a tragedy, a collection
of poems and a treatise on music, Kraus’s
oeuvre as a composer ran to some 208
works. They included some 17 sacred
works, 4 operas, 7 secular cantatas,
21 symphonies, 5 concertos, 16 string
quartets and a flute quintet, 6 piano
trios, 4 violin sonatas and 3 piano
sonatas - some of these 208 works are
now lost. But enough survives to reveal
a composer of some considerable individuality,
a composer not easily ‘placed’ in historical
or stylistic terms.
Kraus was an exact
contemporary of Mozart, but one is perhaps
more often reminded of C.P.E. Bach (especially)
and of Haydn. But there is a sense of
drama, a fondness for suggestive, even
ironic, pauses and for unpredictable
changes of direction, along with the
occasional odd tonal relationship that
all make for a quirky musical voice
imbued with a strong sense of the composer’s
personality. That sense of personality
is perhaps more evident than an entirely
assured formal sense. His best symphonies
– such as those in C major (VB 138)
and C minor (B 142) – make it clear
that his is an important presence in
the eighteenth-century history of that
form. His writing for fortepiano, though
not extensive, has been sensibly judged
– to quote W. Dean Sutcliffe again –
as "a major addition to the repertory
… a keyboard oeuvre the significance
of which is out of all proportion to
its size".
What, then, of Kraus
as a writer of string quartets? Sadly,
his achievement here seems to be rather
inconsistent. This CD presents us with
three of the set of six quartets which
were published as Kraus’s opus 1 in
1784 by J. J. Hummel in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Hummel had recently published an edition
of Haydn’s Six Quartets (op.33) of 1782,
and this set by Kraus was perhaps intended
to appeal to the appetite aroused by
Haydn’s quartets. To the three op.1
quartets, the Salagon Quartet add two
of the four quartets by Kraus which
survive in manuscript. Some of the op.
1 quartets may have been composed before
1777; no.6 was written between 1782
and 1784; the dates of the unpublished
quartets are unknown. One cannot, then,
very usefully discuss these works in
terms of the progression or development
of Kraus’s concept of the form. Op.1
nos 1 and 3, are in three movements;
so is the quartet in E major; the C
minor quartet consists of two movements,
while op.1 no.6 is in four movements.
Op.1 no.3 is a less
than gripping piece. Its opening movement
- marked andante commoto – starts
promisingly, but keeps on going for
some while after Kraus seems to have
lost real interest in it; its central
Romance is oddly characterless;
its brief closing movement – tempo
di minuetto – doesn’t really seem
to be going anywhere and its sudden
ending gives the impression (rightly
or wrongly) than Kraus can’t be bothered
to develop his materials. The C minor
quartet is a pretty slight affair, though
not without some mildly attractive melodies.
In Op.1 no.2, two relatively humdrum
outer movements frame a central largo
which – as Jonathan Woolf noted
in an earlier review (Kraus_Quartets_83194.htm)
- is graced by a lovely viola solo.
The two most successful
works here are op.1 no.6 and the quartet
in E major (VB2 180) – the
latter said to be receiving its first
ever recording. Op.1 no.6, in G major
begins impressively, with a substantial
opening allegro which has both
elegance and gravity – it gets a convincing
performance here. This is followed by
an engaging dance movement marked scozzese
in which Kraus builds up an intriguing
set of variations and a largo which,
in its unexpected twists and turns is
characteristic of Kraus. So, I suppose,
is the brevity of the allegro finale
– which leaves nothing concluded. Kraus
cannot be said to have evolved a truly
satisfactory idea of the balance and
proportions of the quartet. Even his
best quartets seem oddly lop-sided,
never quite amounting to more than the
sum of their parts. The E major quartet
has a rich sense of instrumental interplay
and a good deal of Kraus’s rather quirky
intelligence and musical mannerisms.
Even so, it doesn’t really leave the
listener with a sense of wholeness,
of integration and intellectual/emotional
completeness. These quartets by Kraus
are tantalisingly close to a level of
achievement which lies just beyond their
composer’s reach. One result of listening
to them is the renewed realisation of
just how remarkable Haydn’s contemporary
work in the form is.
The Salagon Quartet
was formed in 2004. The booklet notes
tell us that "their artistic ideal
is based on the transparent, eloquent
and colourful manner of playing which
has developed through the use of instruments
appropriate to the historical period
(e.g. with gut strings and the use of
bows modelled on originals from the
period), and through the careful consideration
of historical performance practice over
the past few decades". For the
most part they can be said to live up
to such ideals. Their playing is generally
assured and precise, and there is a
strong sense of coherence. Just now
and then there might have been room
for a little more in the way of characterisation
and vivacity, but these are accomplished
performances. The recorded sound is
clear but close. Not Kraus at his very
best, but well worth hearing.
Glyn Pursglove
see also review
by Jonathan Woolf
for
details
Salagon Quartet (Christine Busch, Kathrin Tröger
(violin), Claudia Hofert (viola), Gesine Queyras
(cello)) 
