Despite the Swedish composer, Kurt Atterberg, attesting that his
influences were Brahms, Reger and the Romantic Russian composers, the first
thing that hits you when you play this CD is how generically English the
opening of the Op. 11 Quartet sounds.
Atterberg was born in Gothenburg in December 1887, the son of an engineer.
He would study electrical engineering before devoting himself to music. He
began to learn to play the cello when he was 15 years old. This was after he
attended a concert by the Brussels String Quartet. Their cellist Jacques
Gaillard had inspired him to take up the instrument. Within six years he
began performing with what is now the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
Orchestra.
Atterberg started work on a string quartet when still a teenager. In 1906
he completed a quartet with which he is said to have "tortured his
school-fellows". This followed an earlier Fugue for String Quartet onto the
fire and was destroyed. The first work on this disc is actually his
String Quartet No. 2. This
String Quartet Op. 11 was
composed in 1916 after his fellow composer, Natanael Berg, had suggested
that a group of young composers should all compose a short quartet in
response to what they saw as the 'stodgy' works being performed by
the Chamber Music Society of Stockholm. This work has been recorded before
by the Garaguly Quartet but I have not heard that version (Caprice CAP
21502).
The
String Quartet Op. 2/Op. 39, as the opus numbers suggest had
a troubled beginning. Atterberg composed his Op.2 in 1908, he was not
satisfied with the results and later revised the work but he was still not
happy and revised the work again for a performance in front of Tor Aulin in
1909. After this performance the quartet laid unpublished and unperformed
amongst the composer's papers. His
Third String Quartet Op.
39, was composed in 1937 and included a theme from his earliest
attempts at composing a quartet. This was also seen as unsatisfactory by the
composer who revised the work before its final performance. However this led
him to discard the inner movements of the Op. 39 and replace them with those
of the Op. 2. The first live performance of the quartet, as performed here,
was given in April 1938. The resulting work is incredibly homogenous. You
can hardly imagine that nearly thirty years had passed between the
composition of the inner movements and the outer.
The music of Atterberg performed here is deeply rooted in the
Late-Romantic movement. It is strongly melodious and attractive whilst not
being modernistic and is akin to his
symphonies. For me however, the real interest lies
in the only quartet of his near contemporary, Ture Rangström, who though he
died at the relatively young age of 62, had achieved the status of one of
Sweden's leading composers both of songs and orchestral music. His
four symphonies, including the wonderful First, which has the
subtitle
August Strindberg in memoriam, and his Fourth, which is
really a sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra, show greater variety
than those of Atterberg. His music has more emotional content too, and this
can be seen in this short single movement work that bears the title
Un
notturno nella Maniera di E. Th. A. Hoffmann or
A Nocturne in E. T.
A. Hoffman Style. It contains more passion and variety in its thirteen
minutes than in both the Atterberg quartets; this despite having been
revised by Atterberg and another composer,
Edvin Kallstenius (1881-1967) for publication in 1949 two years
after Rangström's death. This self-contained work has, unlike the first of
the two Atterbergs, been recorded before and on CPO, when it was included on
a disc of the composer's chamber music and played by the excellent
Holman Quartet (
999 689-2, 1999). If anything I prefer this earlier
performance as I feel the Holman Quartet show a greater ability to
differentiate between the different episodes. This new account is fine
however, and its crisper recorded sound serves the music better than the
earlier recording. In fact, I wouldn't want to be without either.
Stuart Sillitoe
And another review ...I am indebted to CPO
for introducing me to the music of many composers. Alongside Reznicek and
Röntgen, the two whose symphonic works have given me greatest pleasure are
Atterberg and Rangström. All the more reason to look forward to hearing this
disc which contains Atterberg's two 'official' string
quartets - there's a Suite and a Variations and Fugue too - and
Rangström's only work in the medium. All three pieces prove to be
richly rewarding and significant additions to the repertoire. The
performances from the Stenhammar are as virtuosic as they are committed. The
recording is close and analytical but such is the technical brilliance of
the playing that in many ways this serves to underline the intensity and
power of both music and interpretations.
Atterberg cited the Russian nationalists together with Brahms and Reger as
his main inspirations which he sought to fuse with the use of Swedish folk
music. As far as these quartets are concerned I would add Schubert as well.
Certainly there is a sense that his music is written under the gravitational
pull of those influences. So this is clearly 20th century music that is
content to be part of the same evolutionary curve as those 19th Century
masters. Atterberg was a composer who was comfortable ploughing a consistent
compositional furrow through his long life. In part this explains why the
longest work here shares two opus numbers
and is variously
described as both his First and Third String Quartet. In fact it is a fusion
of two works; the outer movements dating from 1937 and the inner pair from
1909. That there is not more of a stylistic clash with this music written
over a quarter of a century apart could be seen as either coherency or
musical inertia. All I can say is that on none of the occasions I listened
to this disc did I find there to be any 'jarring' shift. In
fact this work has an appealingly balanced form - each of the four movements
of near equal length whose structure and form follow traditional quartet
writing albeit with a modern(ish) accent. For 1937 this is most certainly
not pushing the boundaries of the expressionist capabilities of the
string quartet. Alongside the Fourth Quartets of either Zemlinsky or Frank
Bridge, which both date from the late 1930s as well - and not exactly
arch-modernists themselves - Atterberg's work emerges as powerful,
skilfully written and compelling to listen to but far from
revolutionary.
There is a bracing open-air quality to the music which I find very
appealing. From the outset of the Op.11 quartet which opens the disc, the
music strides forward, confident and purposeful - even the reflective second
subject is calm rather than neurotic and has a modal Vaughan Williams-esque
quality [tr. 1 3:40]. The playing of the Stenhammar Quartet is uniformly
excellent, brimming with virtuosity but at the same time able to pull
dynamics and tone right back to a ghostly whisper. My
only concern
with any aspect of the disc are the very audible sniffs from the first
violin. Listened to at a moderate to low volume this is not distracting but
once the volume is increased or even more so over headphones it is very
noticeable and for me edges towards distracting. Putting that concern aside,
the rest of this disc is pure delight. Recently I found myself strangely
dissatisfied with some York Bowen string Quartets from a similar period -
not in performance terms but as works. Alongside these Atterberg Quartets,
which are written with a real sense of how to exploit the potential of the
format, the Bowen are further revealed as music written
onto the
format rather than
for it.
The opening of the second movement Andante reinforces the sense that
Atterberg understands string writing; a very simple raindrop pizzicato
figure accompanies a folkish viola song - beautifully executed here; ghostly
and mesmeric. In many ways this is the most interesting movement in the
work. The closing
Allegro furioso - this is a three movement work -
is happy to look back towards nineteenth century precedents and feels less
original although still enjoyable. There is nevertheless great pleasure to
be taken in the interplay of the part writing and skill of this performance.
I like particularly the grinding hurdy-gurdy writing for the cello [tr. 3
4:00] creating long-held pedal-notes as the movement drives to an abrupt
conclusion.
If Atterberg is famous at all it is for his
'Dollar' Symphony which won a
competition to write a contemporary symphony in homage to Schubert. No
surprise that the composite Op.2/Op.39 seems more than once to be
Schubertian with a twentieth century accent - especially the finale. This is
a 'traditional' four movement quartet with the slow movement
placed third. It starts, without introduction, with a flowing lyrical theme
- if anything exposes that this is one of the 'later'
movements it is the understated skill of the contrapuntal writing, Atterberg
is content to keep the textures open and clean. For 1937 this might seem
like strangely contented and untroubled music but nonetheless likeable for
all that. The muted scherzo has Mendelssohnian flickering magic which allows
the Stenhammar Quartet to display their exceptional control. Atterberg slips
in momentary heavy cross-beat accents which the players dispatch without
disturbing the flow. The central 'trio' is Slavic in its
gentle melancholy before Mendelssohn returns. The third movement Adagio is
jointly titled 'Romance' and has a song-without-words
character. I'm not wholly convinced how well the weight of this sits
next to the preceding Scherzo although in its own right it's
beautifully written. Somehow it feels as though Atterberg is trying just a
little too hard to write a 'serious heart-of-the-quartet'
movement. He does include some interesting expressive downward glissandi in
the parts which would be very novel for 1909. I wonder if that was added in
the 1937 completion?
The closing
Allegro Deciso is a
tour de force
brilliantly dispatched. Very much written in the spirit of the galloping
finale of Schubert's
Death and the Maiden; so much so I was
very surprised not to read of the similarity in the interesting liner-note.
This brings things to a thrilling conclusion. Certainly this is a work I
would be very happy to hear live although given its complexity and the
unfamiliarity of its composer one suspects that few ensembles will be given
the opportunity to devote time to learning it. Thank goodness therefore that
the performance we do have here is of the quality that it is.
Rangström is in many ways a rougher and less 'polished'
composer than Atterberg - which is probably why I like his works. There is
volcanic urgency, a sense of an imperative need to write down music that is
spilling out of him without the conscious refinement and polish that
Atterberg adds. The opening of his sole work for quartet recorded here has a
driving, bullish determination that foreshadows Leoš Janáček's
remarkable quartets. Certainly this feels more modern both in terms of sound
and expressive range than the companion works. The Stenhammar Quartet again
display marvellous engagement and play with a tonal range that tests their
instruments to the limit but is ideal for this bi-polar music. Quite the
relevance of the title Un Notturno nella Maniera di E.T.A. Hoffmann I do not
know but neither does it seem terribly important. A stand-alone quartet work
of less than fifteen minutes duration is a relative rarity. What I find
remarkable is just how much Rangström crams into this time-frame. I could
imagine some finding the lurching between ecstatic energy and frozen
stillness too extreme in such a short span but I am amazed by the range of
emotion and effect. As well as the already mentioned Janáček there are
pre-echoes of Shostakovich [tr. 8 9:10] where heavy folk-like dances hammer
out over implacable grinding bass arpeggiations. The immediate dissolution
into a muted chorale motif which in turn suddenly becomes a driving fugal
passage before fading into misty silence is just bizarre - but I love it.
The young Rangström was advised by Carl Nielsen to write for quartet as
useful technical practice. With regard to this work Nielsen wrote, "I
feel that the vivacity and temperament that imbues your quartet is truly
enchanting ... maybe we once can discuss the question of chamber
music's style, goal, and limitations [my italics]". So perhaps
even the older composer felt the content risked overwhelming the form. Much
as I enjoyed the Atterberg quartets, this work is the reason to hear this
disc. A remarkable, imaginative and powerful piece of music with my only
sorrow that it did not mark the start of an extended group of quartet works
by this composer - perhaps reflecting a little more of the control Nielsen
recommends. Again I have nothing but praise for this performance.
All in all this is another CPO triumph. Quite why it was kept in
the recording vaults for five years I do not know. Perhaps the engineering
is a tad close - but to my ear this adds to the Expressionist wildness of
Rangström's work. Certainly the playing can stand such close
attention throughout. An interesting liner seals the deal. An important and
valuable addition to the catalogue of Scandinavian String Quartet music.
Nick Barnard
Previous review:
David Barker
