Egon Wellesz (1885-1974)
Chamber Music
Four Pieces for String Trio Op. 105 (1969)
String Trio Op. 86 (1962)
Clarinet Quintet Op. 81 (1959)
Four Pieces for String Quartet Op. 103 (1968)
Four Pieces for String Trio Op. 105 (1971 revision)
Veles Ensemble
Peter Cigleris (clarinet)
Gabriela Opacka-Boccadoro (violin)
rec. 2020, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, UK
Toccata Classics TOCC0617 [74]
Although Wellesz was born in Vienna, he lived a great deal of his life in Oxford as a distinguished professor, especially of Byzantine music. His works as a composer cover a period of over sixty years. This disc concentrates on his rich period of creativity in the 60s and 70s.
Several discs of his major works have emerged over the last twenty years. For example, cpo recorded all his symphonies and other orchestral works. Nimbus recorded three of his string quartets (NI5821) and his choral music (NI 5852), and more can be found by searching the catalogue, but of these five works, four are newly recorded.
The intensity that Schoenberg’s Expressionism brought to his string quartets, especially the second, can also be heard in Wellesz’s Four pieces for String Quartet. They vary in length between just over two minutes to just under four and are therefore highly polished miniatures. This was the composer’s aim. He regarded himself, it seems, as a pupil of Schoenberg, although he studied with him for less than a year. Wellesz took the view that he did not want to be over-influenced by his teacher but needed to discover himself and use Schoenberg as a steppingstone, one might say. In that way, Alban Berg is his soulmate – but rarely Webern, even though they were colleagues for a time, however, Wellesz continued to promote Schoenberg’s music, often ahead of his own. By calling his works ‘Four Pieces’ he was aligning himself with Webern and Berg, but whereas the former wrote strictly serial music as promulgated by the controlling influence of Schoenberg, Wellesz is freely atonal, more like Berg.
Wellesz did, however, use serial technique occasionally, but to his own ends. He has a style of his own; it is often impassioned and intense – post-Romantic I would argue. It is said that he coined the term ’atonal’ and that certainly applies to these works, none more so that the Four Pieces for String Trio offered here in the original 1969 version and in a revision of just two years later. The four movements end with a painfully intense ‘Molto tranquillo’ but include an abrasive Scherzo. Without a score, I cannot usefully tell how the two versions of this work differ.
The above works date from his last years but perhaps with a title simply like ‘Clarinet Quintet’ or ‘String Trio’ Wellesz was composing from a more classical perspective, and these works are of a few years earlier. The anonymous comment on the back of the CD describing the music as a ‘mix of tonality, Expressionism and Schoenbergian serialism’ and going on say that the music has ‘a keen sense of drama’ seems especially apt in the 1962 String trio. Movement 1 (Molto sostenuto) is a mixture of anger and desolation which the ensuing Vivace tries to throw off, but unsuccessfully. The Adagio demonstrates a mood of utter loneliness and sadness. Perhaps the composer is remembering the Austria he was forced to leave behind and the fate of the many Jewish friends he would have known before his enforced exile in 1933. The very short Allegro moderato which ends the work acts as an agitated, even grumpy, response in the form of a coda.
The Clarinet Quintet is the earliest work on this disc and is contemporaneous with Wellesz’s last two symphonies, numbers 8 and 9. By this stage in his creative life he was paring down his material and writing with greater economy. I feel that this work is the most ‘approachable’ on the disc, even though as the booklet writer says, the middle movement is ‘quasi-twelve-tone’. In fact, it is very lyrical, especially for the clarinet, and the finale, which has the feeling of a Scherzo, ends tonally. The first movement is tougher and demonstrates one of Wellesz’s fingerprints: a nervous dotted rhythm which you will hear elsewhere. The influence of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet may also be detected.
If you want to get to know Egon Wellesz, this would be a good place to start – and it is also worth looking out for the disc of choral works mentioned above. These are very fine and technically brilliant performances by musicians who must have been encountering this music for the first time and, as far as it is possible to ascertain, seem to relish the sound world of this fascinating composer.
Gary Higginson
Help us financially by purchasing from
