Joachim RAFF (1822-1882)
String Quartet No.2 in A major, Op.90 (1857) [40:44]
String Quartet No.3 in E minor, Op.136 (1867) [33:37]
String Quartet No.4 in A minor, Op.137 (1867) [30:30]
String Quartet No.8 in C major, Op.192 (1876) [22:40]
Mannheim String Quartet
rec. November 2006 (Quartets 4 and 8) and June 2007 (Quartets 2 and 3),
Hans-Rosbaud Studio, Baden-Baden
CPO 777004-2 [74:41 + 53:24]
The Raff renaissance on disc continues. This time it's the string quartets
that are explored by the Mannheim Quartet. In passing one should note CPO's
steadfast commitment to the composer's music with discs of the
piano trios,
violin sonatas and some of the symphonies (
7
and
8-11) in their catalogue.
This twofer presents half Raff's published eight quartets, and we must
hope that the remainder will be forthcoming to add to numbers 6 and 7
recorded by the Mannheimers in 2003
(
review). If the trios can be taken as a precedent,
then it looks likely even though the recordings were made as long ago as
2006-07. The quartets are suffused with Raff's lyrical grace but, more than
that, they have a sense of personable individuality that makes them more
than merely attractive examples of the genre.
The Second Quartet in A major was written in 1857 and the warmly balanced
playing of the Mannheimers pays dividends in exploring its sonata-form
felicities. The opening has a wealth of delicious melodic writing, a songful
iridescence that is well contrasted with the Allegretto where the play of
rustic and elfin is especially delightful. The finale is strongly chromatic,
its March theme adding style to this 40-minute quartet. There was a gap of a
decade between this work and the succeeding Quartet in E minor. Here Raff
makes much play of independent lines, somewhat Mendelssohnian, that sound
halting and almost contingent but which fuse together adeptly and wittily.
The scherzo mines those rustic drone motifs before ushering in the graceful
and quietly complex slow movement, its diverse moods encapsulating a sweetly
melancholic section, a reverie conveyed with rapt beauty in this performance
- the music barely breathes at one point before its hymnal close.
The Fourth Quartet, written close on the heels of the E minor, witnesses a
degree of urgency rare until now in his quartets. It's a case of four
independent voices trying to find a compromise with the first violin leading
the lyricism with great sweep. Raff was an inveterate writer of jovial
scherzos for chamber forces and this is one such, whilst his slow movement
conforms to another quality, which is his ability to be melancholic yet move
onwards with fluidity. With a great sense of theatrical panache, the
instruments revert to ruminative soliloquies, as if unable to synthesise the
emotive direction of the quartet, until Raff relinquishes them from their
dilemma via a brief but concluding presto section.
Raff's last quartet differs from the preceding ones in this disc. Firstly
it's quite obviously based on the ground-plan of Beethoven's last quartets
in its use of numerous movements but also it conforms rather more to the
condition of a suite than a quartet. Raff utilises old dance forms but with
craft and wit and quite without a sense of pastiche. He crafts a delightful
Aria and vests the Gavotte and Musette with a trademark drone effect. This
shows Raff moving in rather different directions, though I wouldn't say that
it eclipses the earlier works.
The recording perspective puts the quartet at just a slight distance,
though not too far to blunt the sweetness and lyricism the group locates in
the music. They play with charm and elegance throughout this delightful
release.
Jonathan Woolf
