Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 (1827) [29:01]
Quartet No. 5 in E flat, Op. 44, No. 3 (1838) [32:33]
Luigi BOCCHERINI (1743-1805)
Quartet in B minor, Op.58, No.4, G.245 [14:30]
Quartet in B-flat, Op.2, No.2, G.160 [11:05]
Quartet in E-flat, Op.53, No.1, G.236 [10:22]
Quartet in E-flat, Op.58, No.2, G.243 [15:43]
New Music Quartet - Broadus Erle (violin): Matthew Raimondi (violin): Walter
Trampler (viola): Claus Adam (cello - Mendelssohn) or David Soyer (cello -
Boccherini)
rec. 1954-55
Columbia 30th Street Studios, New York
PRISTINE AUDIO XR PACM069 [61:34 + 51:40]
It’s the early 1950s and you’re a devotee of Mendelssohn’s chamber music.
Maybe you’re an amateur cellist. You want to listen to one of the quartets
on disc and you scan the catalogues, possibly venture to your record emporium
of choice. What do you find? You find, for a start, that the Budapest Quartet
has recorded No.1 for HMV/Victor. You also find things are somewhat better
in the case of No.3 where the Guilet has set down a version for Vox, and the
Stradivarius for Columbia. Of the others there is no sign of a complete recording
though there are isolated movements around.
This must also have struck Columbia in New York, therefore, as a good opportunity
to expand into a depleted market. In May 1954 the company engaged the New
Music Quartet to record the Second and Fifth Quartets, at a stroke expanding
the discography to splendid effect, and furnishing us with excellent examples
of this particular quartet’s art on disc. Now, over half a century later these,
and other performances, are reinstated by Pristine Audio.
The group was in existence only from 1948 to 1955. Its members were Broadus
Erle (1918-1977), Matthew Raimondi (whose dates I’ve not been able to ascertain),
the experienced émigré violist Walter Trampler (1915-1997), and cellists Claus
Adam (1917-1983) and David Soyer, born in 1923, and who died earlier this
year (2010).
The performances are excellent throughout. The playing catches the pious intensity
of the writing – see the Adagio introduction to the A minor – as well as the
rapt intensity of the slow movements. So too they gauge the vehement quasi-Beethovenian
writing of the same quartet’s finale, and the crisp resilience and rhythmic
vitality of the opening of the E flat quartet. The playing is crisp, textures
remaining clean, clear, orientated in the best post-war manner. Tonally well
scaled, these Mendelssohn performances exude warmth but also precision.
If one found the Mendelssohn quartet locker curiously empty, the state of
play with Boccherini was oddly not so bad. True, there was a lot of ground
to cover, but we had already heard 78 recordings of the Op.1 No.2 by the Pascal,
Op.33/5 by the Roth, and its opus mate Op.33 No.6 by a trio of groups; Kreiner,
York (on Royale and hard to track down) as well as the Belardinelli. When
it came to Op.6 No.1 we were spoilt for choice; New Italian, Rome, Poltronieri,
and the ICBS. I know nothing about the last named. Of these groups it’s the
New Italian, or rather the Quartetto Italiano, as it subsequently became known,
that has exerted a strong hold on ‘historic’ performances of some of the Boccherini
quartets. Nevertheless this New World, New Music survey of four of the works
represented a real step forward, given that they set down three of the Op.58
set, and one of the Op.2 set into the bargain. They catch the lissomness of
the writing, the affectionate nobility of it. Unanimity of attack is admirable,
unison weight excellent. The zesty lines for Erle and for Trampler in the
witty and energetic first movement of the brief two-movement Op.53 No. 1 are
a real highpoint.
The LPs from which this transfer derives were clearly in fine condition. The
PA engineering is top class as well, and we can listen with enthusiasm and
admiration to these highly accomplished performances.
Jonathan Woolf
We can listen with enthusiasm and admiration to these highly accomplished
performances.