Printable Version: - Jadasson Leipzig QUERSTAND VKJK 1222 [JW] Musicweb International Classical Reviews

It would be overstating the case to say that Salomon Jadassohn is undergoing a recorded renaissance, especially as he never featured in the catalogues in the first place. Nevertheless, his music is slowly being discovered, and this is the second disc that I’ve reviewed that features it. This music sets him firmly in his Leipzig context, offering a sequence of three piano quartets, of which Jadassohn’s is by some way the latest.

It was written in 1884, when the composer was in his early 50s, but those who know something of his music will expect Mendelssohnian inheritance, and so it largely proves. Much of the writing, confident, surely laid out and highly approachable, has decided echoes of the composer who had died when Jadassohn was sixteen. It’s not Mendelssohn’s own Piano Quartet that Jadassohn’s reminds me of—as this was a very early work and not wholly characteristic—but rather his Op.66 Piano Trio. There is a striking similarity in terms of some of the first movement figuration but of more significance is its general ethos, not least in a decidedly Mendelssohnian scherzo. The slow movement gains in ardour and one feels some Schumann influence here, whilst there’s a stormy, romantic finale, though a stern critic might note that it lacks true melodic distinction.

As suggested, Mendelssohn’s contribution to the genre was an early one, written when he was fourteen, and only his Op.2. It has a youthful brio and is, naturally, very adeptly laid out, and the balance between strings and piano is well judged; so too the thematic material and its distribution. The quartet is at its best in the capricious finale where rhythmic buoyancy reigns. Schumann’s Op.47 Piano Quartet has long since entered the core repertory. The Leipzig Piano Quartet plays this persuasively, taking taut tempi and ensuring clarity of texture. They take a flowing speed for the slow movement, acknowledging the cantabile qualifier and ensuring that this movement is not indulged, rather having a sense of lyric fluidity.

Throughout, in fact, they play with good corporate tone and sensitive ear for balance and textual matters. I can’t find out where they were recorded but the location was a very acceptable one.

Jonathan Woolf

Persuasive playing, taut tempi and clarity of texture.

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