Frieder
Bernius has an astonishingly wide range as a conductor.
His other discs for the Carus label give a hint of this,
ranging from Mendelssohn through Schoenberg to Ligeti.
He is closely associated with the Streicherakademie
Bozen, which was founded in 1987, and mixes seasoned
players from South Tirol with younger musicians who benefit
from their experience. The band generally plays without
a conductor, but under Bernius’s leadership they sound
very good indeed.
Franz Schubert’s
Overtüre
in c-Moll is one of his first surviving pieces, and
shows the young composer modeling his music on Luigi
Cherubini’s overture to the opera
Faniska. Falling
within the conventions and expectations of such examples
there is no great sense of formal originality in the
piece, but there are some remarkable ‘almost-wrong’ modulations
and little corners which certainly show a willingness
to poke convention with a stick to see what will come
out. This is refreshingly naïve/sophisticated music with
plenty of youthful freshness and an attractive turn of
phrase. It’s like pulling the cork on a bottle of young
wine, and the Bozen players sound as if they are having
great fun with it.
Arrangements
of Beethoven’s string quartets for string orchestra turn
up from time to time, and the arguments for and against
are nothing new. Beethoven’s bold and sometimes even awkwardly
eccentric writing in the
Streichquartette in F-dur op.135 is
robbed of much of its intensity when transcribed for multiple
strings. What it gains in scale and range with the increased
numbers and the addition of the double-bass it loses in
searching intimacy, and even the skilled strings of the
Streicherakademie cannot hide this aspect of the music
in this form. The beatific writing of the slow “sweet song
of calm and peace” movement does sound gorgeous in this
setting however, and if it’s Beethoven without the grim
grit you prefer, then this recording will help out a great
deal. The final impact of the “must it be?” theme has plenty
of kick in this recording, and the playing has plenty of
dynamism and contrast. My own feeling is however that of
the wild and wayward Beethoven being brought safely to
the middle of the road in a sweet little rococo vase. The
piece becomes just a bit too pretty for my liking – which
is just my personal taste; I bow to your own should you
respond more positively. I don’t actively dislike this
recording or the crack playing on this fine recording,
it’s just that the work is transformed into an almost entirely
different piece to my ears.
I’ve
looked at Hartmann’s
Concerto funèbre elsewhere on
these pages, and find myself immediately preferring the
Carus recording to Svetlin Roussev and Arie van Beek’s
on the Polymnie label, in the first place simply because
the recording sounds so much more natural. That phasey,
rather artificial sound has come back to haunt me, and
despite some very fine and sensitive playing from Vichy
I am glad to have Ulrike-Anima Mathé’s as a replacement.
Her violin finds more drama in the music, with some passages
howling in the wind like the ghost of Heathcliff. Placing
such passion alongside the lonely beauty of the more
lyrical moments make for hair-raising musicianship, and
what feels like a genuine sympathy and sense of collaboration
between the musicians and the spirit and intention of
the composer.
The
piece was originally entitled
Musik der Trauer,
but received its present title when the music was revised
by the composer in 1959. In 1939, with the Third Reich
set upon a course of war and destruction, Hartmann became
an ‘internal’ refugee, and his heartfelt expression in
this and other pieces from this time was as an artistic
declaration, a counteraction to the nightmare power of
Fascism in Germany. His anger is expressed in the opening
quote of ‘Ye Who are God’s Warriors’, a Hussite chorale
which points toward the Nazi betrayal of Czechoslovakia.
There
are a number of very good recordings of this piece available
elsewhere, of which that of Isabelle Faust and Christoph
Poppen on ECM is top of the heap at the moment. If you
need convincing of the value of this Carus recording
however, try listening to the final
Choral without
having a lump in your throat, every time. For me, this
is what having such recordings is all about. True, you
might prefer not to be saddled with Beethoven’s Op.135
arranged for string orchestra, or have to put up with
a rather short playing time, but otherwise this is a
marvellous performance of timeless music whose value
is beyond price.
Dominy Clements
Ulrike-Anima
Mathé (violin) 
