Maria Bach (1896-1978)
Piano Quintet in A minor, ‘Wolga Quintet’ (1928)
Cello Sonata in C minor (1924)
Suite for solo cello in F minor (1922)
Marina Grauman (violin), Nina Karmon (violin), Öykü Canpolat (viola), Alexander Hülshoff (cello), Oliver Treindl (piano)
rec. 2020/21, WDR Funkhaus Cologne, Klaus-von-Bismark-Saal
HÄNSSLER HC21051 [65]
By one of those occasional coincidences that crop up from time to time, two recordings of Maria Bach’s Piano Quintet and Cello Sonata have turned up simultaneously. The one under review also contains the Suite for Solo Cello, whereas CPO 555 341-2 offers the String Quintet (review). If you have a fetish for discographic exactitude, you can note that the CPO was recorded slightly earlier than the Hänssler.
And Maria Bach? She was from an aristocratic, moneyed and musical background – her mother had sung under Brahms and Mahler - and was born near Vienna. She was clearly a formidable pianist and studied in the city with Joseph Marx, having been earlier encouraged by Julius Korngold. Though she left the Academy for Music without a formal qualification she was soon to make her way in musical life in the city. She was frequently heard on the radio in the 1930s and many of her works were performed, though the Second World War – allied to insolvency (not her fault) – led to a sad decline. There is a very slight suspicion from Michael Wittmann’s excellent booklet notes, which are far more wide ranging and detailed than CPO’s, that Bach took her own life. In February 1978 she was found dead in her flat from smoke inhalation.
Bach is an interesting case. Her music is infused with French and Russian elements and one can quite hear why it was so appealing to Roger-Ducasse who ensured that her 31-minute Piano Quintet was performed at the Paris Conservatoire when she visited Paris in 1930-31. Like all good music it’s clearly susceptible to strongly divergent interpretive stances. The Hänssler team is anchored by Oliver Treindl, who in my experience is probably one of the most hard-working and often recorded of players. He’s also an athletic figure who ensures forward-moving tempi. The Hänssler performance of the Piano Quintet – subtitled ‘Wolga’ Quintet because the second movement is a 17-minute Theme and Variations on The Song of the Volga Boatmen – is a much bigger, richer and faster recording than the CPO competitor. Partly this is due to the acoustic which is slightly distanced but richly atmospheric: the CPO is a more intimate one which perfectly suits their more reserved performance. The Quintet has diaphanous as well as more driving moments, strongly Francophile, and whilst the Hänssler players are more passionate, one could argue that the CPO team is the more clarity-conscious and Debussian. This is equally true in the very long central Theme and Variations where the quicker Hänssler team ensure a somewhat greater sense of flow. Hints of chinoiserie fleck the finale, as well as a strong folkloric feel; I hear more of a cimbalom feel in the Hänssler reading at its zestier tempo.
The eminent cellist Paul Grümmer was a family friend and Bach was fortunate he liked her music and played the Cello Sonata frequently. It’s modestly structured – three movements and 19 minutes in this reading by Alexander Hülshoff and Treindl – and has a ripe Brahmsian rhapsodic feel, with a warmly curvaceous lyricism in the Romanze second movement. As with the Piano Quintet the finale is full of dextrous animation. Once more the acoustic, and the tonal density of the Hänssler team, is richer and more overtly expressive than CPO’s though their tempi are almost exactly the same.
The final work in the disc is the Suite for cello, a crisp four-movement affair that looks back to Popper, as the notes indicate, rather than Bach. After a sonorous, chordal Praeludium come the registral leaps of an etude-like Scherzo, an expressive Air and then another of her favoured variations for a finale – including a Tango-like one – which call for supple bowing. It’s a deft work, all the more so in not honouring Bach’s legacy in any obvious fashion.
In terms of amplitude and density of sound this disc is an impressive one. The players sound firmly engaged in what must have been unfamiliar repertoire. They’ve been backed up by some classy notes. For overt expression, choose this; for a more inward look at Maria Bach, you’ll need the CPO.
Jonathan Woolf
