Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Verklärte Nacht (1899) [29:26]
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Souvenir de Florence (1890) [34:24]
Jan Mráček, Markéta Vokáčová (violins)
Kristina Fialová, Karel Untermüller (violas)
Petr Nouzovský, Ivan Vocáč (cellos)
rec. live, Suk Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague, April 2020
ARCODIVA UP0223-2 [63:57]
This recording was sparked by a cycle of concerts in Prague last spring, with both works recorded at a subsequent charity concert - the recording date suggests that this followed soon after the pandemic lockdowns ended in Czechia.
This Verklärte Nacht takes a minute or two to hit its stride. The opening feels poky; the violin's twisty solo doesn't undulate. (In general, these players don't undulate.) The turbulent motifs shortly pick things up, with incisive accents maintaining a sense of motion. It's after the first big D major chord (track 4) - somewhat mushily attacked, alas - that the playing becomes unusually expressive. The ensuing passage holds steady, giving the players time for thoughtful, even caressing shaping of the interweaving phrases. The broad violin melody a bit later unfolds patiently; the ausdrucksvoll passages a bit further along are spacious and fervent. Time and again, I found myself newly touched by passages I'd long taken for granted.
On the debit side, the strongly directional phrasing isn't always supplied with comparably precise ensemble. As suggested earlier, chordal arrival points register, but don't quite land together: some of the later D major cadences sound tentative. As the counterpoint gets knottier, I'd not swear that every note is in tune. Another smeared attack spoils the magical effect of the penultimate high harmonics. And the leader's tone - it's not clear which violinist is leading - becomes grating on the highest lines.
Souvenir de Florence is almost hobbled from the start by the decision to treat the violin's quadruple stop as a rhetorical device. The very first time, it's just a distraction; after that, the recurrent agogic hiccough impedes the forward motion. (The recapitulation suffers a bit less of this, which is all to the good.) The second theme sings broadly and sensitively over the ongoing rhythmic pattern. The development brings shafts of sunlight amid the turbulence, but, in the recap, the timing of the various off-beat accents is slightly uncomfortable.
The Adagio cantable opens with gorgeously vibrant, full-throated chords; the ensuing tempo seems to push the pizzicatos a bit, but the theme flows easily at this pace. The climax seems insufficiently emphatic - odd, given the earlier rhetoric - but it builds well, and the movement holds together better than usual, in a broad arc. The mournful, folksong-like duple of the Allegro moderato accelerates into a joyous, scampering scherzando. The finale, similarly folk-like in its contours, is straightforwardly played and shaped.
So these six young musicians - who apparently hadn't yet collaborated long enough to christen their group - aren't perfect, but they are musical and perceptive, which is certainly something. I'm looking forward to hearing them again, after a bit more experience, and perhaps with a name.
Stephen Francis Vasta
stevedisque.wordpress.com/blog
