Ordinarily, when you see the Metamorphosen,
ostensibly for twenty-three solo strings, and the Capriccio
Prelude for string sextet on the same album - say, Salonen's
(Sony) - both scores are played by the larger ensemble, with
the Capriccio turned into a string-orchestra piece.
The Nash Ensemble reverses the pattern: they play the Capriccio
in the regulation sextet version - and handsomely, as with
the rest of this program - and then add a double-bass for
a septet rendition of the Metamorphosen.
Such a performance wasn't exactly Strauss's
intention, though you could say it was his idea: apparently,
a short score for seven instruments represents one stage of
his compositional process, though, after completing it so
in March 1945, he almost immediately began expanding it into
the familiar final version. The short score, according to
Michael Kennedy's note in the booklet, was "discovered
in Switzerland in 1990" - was it lost? - and first performed
in Rudolf Leopold's performing edition in 1994.
The surprise is that, the stripped-down forces
notwithstanding, it doesn't sound like anything's missing
here. In fact, there's quite a bit of "functional"
duplication - fleshing out of harmonic or rhythmic elements
- among the individual parts in Strauss's final Metamorphosen
score, along with a fair proportion of flat-out doublings;
in the Nash Ensemble's expert performance, the seven stringed
instruments suffice to cover all the important elements of
the musical texture. Their firm-bowed, vibrant playing sacrifices
nothing in projection or tonal richness; if anything, the
bass lines register more strongly here, as played by a single
bassist, than they do in the full version. The careful balancing,
allowing the important parts to dominate as they move through
the middle of the texture, bespeaks painstaking care and rehearsal
- only towards the end of the fast section does the sonority
become a bit thick and cluttered, but that's true in many
standard renderings as well.
The two string works here serve as bookends
for the early Piano Quartet, in which recognizable Straussian
touches color the basic Brahmsian model. Thus, a muscular
energy akin to the older composer's carries the first movement
along, but the piano writing is more limpid, and the second
subject - which, in the recapitulation, strains at the limited
chamber-music scale - has an inimitably Straussian melodic
curve of the sort familiar from the songs. Similarly, the
Scherzo's minor-key grimness is leavened with a scintillating
dash, the Andante's final major-key resolution is a
literally and unmistakably Straussian turn of phrase, and
a few moderately wild chromatic pivots enliven the strongly
rhythmic Finale.
As suggested earlier, the playing of the Nash
Ensemble members is beautiful, sympathetic, and musically
keen, with the strings' clean attacks and balances setting
off pianist Ian Brown's fluid, articulate work in the Piano
Quartet. The engineering is first-rate, providing warmth along
with clear, focused definition. Definitely a worthwhile acquisition,
especially for those put off by the Metamorphosen in
its usual context.
Stephen Francis Vasta
The Nash Ensemble
