This issue puzzled me when I saw it. The packaging is professional
enough, but I'd never heard of the record label, and the disc
hasn't an order number. If you suspect a home-grown production,
your instincts are quicker than mine, and you're right. The
International Festival-Institute at Round Top, in Texas, was
"founded in 1971 by world-renowned concert pianist James
Dick" - according to its website, festivalhill.org. It
describes itself as "an internationally acclaimed European-styled
music institute for aspiring young musicians and distinguished
faculty." The disc looks like a private issue by the festival,
though I couldn't find any mention of it on the site - and,
for what it's worth, I notice the artists themselves hold the
copyright.
The choice of program for this lead-off release suggests that Round
Top has Marlboro-style aspirations as a training and performance
center for chamber music. On the strength of this disc, it looks
like the festival is well on the way to realizing those aspirations.
These players aren't household names, but they all have respectable
international credits, and their performance of the Brahms quintet
proves tonally as well as interpretatively distinctive.
It's not easy for a clarinetist to stand out from the general recorded
run these days, and not just because of the abundance of fine
players: digital recording seems somehow to favor the instrument,
to flatter its attack and overtones, bringing out its expressive
capacity with striking realism. Håkan Rosengren's distinctive
gift is a lightly touched "sub-tone" or echo tone
that, like a fine singer's mezza voce, allows for some
beautiful, nuanced shadings in the Brahms. Of course, such an
effect could, like that mezza voce, become cloying or
pallid if overused, but Rosengren deploys it sparingly, reserving
it for such phrases as at 5:09 of the first movement. Otherwise,
he is a capable technician and a musical artist with a good
feeling for the long, arching phrase. Rosengren's uppermost
notes, as at 6:00 of the Adagio, threaten to turn piercing;
fortunately, this remains only a threat.
Turning to his collaborators, most string quartets tend toward an overall
sonority that is either predominantly bright, like the Guarneri,
or predominantly dark, like the old Italiano. But the Chiara
Quartet, recently artists-in-residence at the University of
Nebraska, vary the balance of chiaroscuro elements across
the working range, whether consciously or instinctively. The
shining first violin suggests a reserve of depth; the dusky
cello has markedly bright overtones; and the middle voices adjust
their timbral balances accordingly. This particularly benefits
Brahms's counterpoint, which here sounds awash in a variety
of tonal colors; yet the homophonic passages sound remarkably
unified.
The hint of roughness in the string tone, the sort of thing that other
quartets assiduously smooth away, may also surprise you. The
Chiara players are never coarse or inaccurate - the pitches
are well-centered, the interplay of voices sensitive - so this
is clearly a deliberate choice on their part, rather than a
symptom of technical shortcomings. The touch of rawness lends
the lyrical passages a rustic character that suits them, while
adding a bracing edge to recurring accompaniment figures such
as Brahms's driving, pulsing triplets.
In the resulting performance, all these musicians' best instincts come
into play. In the opening, the strings underline a disturbed
undercurrent - customarily underplayed in favor of a reflexive
"autumnal" warmth - while the climaxes later on are
noticeably taut. Rosengren begins the Adagio introspectively,
the return of the first-movement motif leading to a more turbulent
interplay with the strings. The start of the intermezzo-like
Andantino serves much the same function within the overall
structure as does the corresponding movement of the Second Symphony.
That and the finale's main theme can sound flat-footed or square;
here, both these passages sing and "breathe" naturally.
This intelligent, alert performance is a pleasure.
After this, the Mozart disappoints. It sounds inhibited: the phrasing
remains purposeful and musically guided, but it felt as if the
dynamic range was deliberately being reined in, perhaps out
of an erroneous perception of Classical style. Whatever the
reason, the results are genial, relaxed and too subdued. Only
in moments like the big arpeggiated flourish near the start,
where Rosengren can't help releasing his sound, does the performance
spring fleetingly to life.
Veteran collectors will find this worth tracking down and hearing for
the Brahms. If you just want a single edition of this program,
though, you'd be better off finding the Decca coupling by the
Vienna Octet members - sensitively rendered, with impeccably
cultivated tone and handsome recorded sound.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Håkan Rosengren (clarinet)
