Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
String Quartet No.1 in A major Op.16 (1922-23)
String Quartet No.2 in E flat major Op.26 (1933)
String Quartet No.3 in D major Op.34 (1945)
Tippett Quartet
rec. 2021, School Farm Studios, Little Maplestead, UK
Naxos 8.574428 [77]
In 1977 when RCA released an LP of the Chilingirian String Quartet playing Korngold’s 1st and 3rd Quartets it was one of the earliest examples of the re-awakening of interest in and re-evaluation of Korngold the composer of ‘serious’ music. Time constraints with the LP format presumably precluded the inclusion of the missing 2nd Quartet. The advent of the CD and its longer playing time solved that issue although in fact few quartets have chosen to explore these wonderful but hugely demanding works. In terms of ‘complete’ sets by my reckoning this is just the fourth. The Flesch Quartet on ASV/resissued on Brilliant split the works across two discs but added the wonderful String Sextet as a filler. Likewise the Aron Quartet on CPO offered the Piano Quintet. More recently (2010) The Doric Quartet on Chandos (review) fitted all three on a single disc as here with the Tippett Quartet for Naxos. Various other groups have included a single quartet as part of a mixed recital but these are works worth hearing as a collective whole even if that can make for a fairly intense hour and a quarter. I was a little surprised to realise that the Doric’s version was already twelve years old so there is certainly room in the catalogue for a new recording especially when it is made by a quartet of the stature and excellence as the Tippetts. I know the Flesch and Doric performances but not the Aron and the Chilingirian was my introduction to the world of the Korngold String Quartet. All the versions I know are good – you have to be very good to even contemplate playing this music but for the purposes of this review I will limit myself to comparing like for like – the Tippets and the Doric.
Since the 1970’s Korngold’s compositional stock has deservedly risen. With multiple performances of his key works available on disc and in the opera house/concert performers and listeners are becoming much more familiar not just with the literal notes he writes but more crucially the unique style in which he writes. His genuinely prodigious talent has been well documented but his musical style is much more varied and sophisticated than the hyper-Romantic outpourings of a boy-genius. The three quartets are actually quite evenly spaced at roughly eleven year intervals across his career from the No.1 Op.16 of 1922-23 to the final No.3 Op.34 twenty two years later. In 1922 Korngold was just 25 so by the measure of nearly any other composer this might still be considered a student/youthful work. But given that he had been producing major works in all genres of mind-boggling maturity for a decade this is simply not the case. As with so much Korngold from this phase of his life, the music boils over with extraordinary confidence in his handling of the musical material, the harmonic structure and indeed the formal control. With this confidence comes little or no consideration for how technically demanding the music is for the players. Both the Tippetts and the Doric play with quite remarkable technical security – by that measure alone they are quite inseparable. As displays of individual and collective excellence either recording will bring great pleasure and indeed admiration. Both are very well recorded too – the Dorics in the tried and tested Potton Hall and the Tippetts at School Farm Studios. The latter venue is a new location for me – from a booklet photograph it looks like a rather beautiful restored barn and certainly as recorded here the acoustic is generous and warm as well as detailed.
Timings too show little overall difference either; the Dorics are a minute slower overall in No.1 (not a great deal in a work lasting over half an hour), seconds quicker in No.2 but nearly two minutes slower in the twenty-five minute No.3. There is a considerable difference in the basic musical approach especially in the first two quartets. There are two characteristics in Korngold’s music that can be seen as expressive opposites. One is the surgingly dramatic, harmonically ambiguous post-modern Romanticism while the other is the lighter, often nostalgic occasionally naive quality when he conjures a memorable melody within bars of tortured anguish. The difficulty for the musician is to find a coherent path between these extremes whilst fully embracing the musical implications of both. The Tippetts seem to emphasise the former and do not fully explore the latter. These are high-octane, astonishingly well-played interpretations that can actually become slightly wearing if heard at a single sitting. The opening Allegro molto of String Quartet No.1 in A major Op.16 has exactly the right quality of impetuousness that liner note writer Richard Whitehouse ascribes it. For the Tippetts this is quasi-symphonic in their attack and as such is quite thrilling. But Korngold needs to smile as well and these performances rarely do. Both the first two quartets feature a movement titled “Intermezzo” which suggests something less fraught and/or neurotic. In the first quartet the Doric are gentler, more subversive, more playful. The Tippett’s sharply pointed accents – a feature throughout – for sure makes the music sound more modernist but I feel this is a false relationship. Likewise the finale which contains the crucial admonition “amabile” is far more forthright with the Tippetts. Make no mistake this is top drawer ensemble playing – just not in the right spirit. This quartet and indeed this finale have echoes both of Korngold’s light-hearted incidental music for Much Ado About Nothing as well as his oft-explored thematic “motif of the cheerful heart”. Both go for little for the Tippetts who seem to want to avoid any accusation of sentiment.
This is a recurring issue in the String Quartet No.2 in E flat major Op.26 where the slow movement is explicitly marked “con moto sentimento” and possibly even more in the Waltz Finale which is achingly nostalgic and seems to evoke the spirit of a Kriesler Liebeslied. It could be argued that Korngold was born nostalgic and you can either see this as a strength or weakness in the music he subsequently produced. For me the Dorics find a near-ideal balance; willing to embrace the nostalgia and the pained beauty it brings without allowing it to lapse into saccharine sentiment. The Tippetts are made of emotionally sterner stuff. For sure every one of these works has several passages which respond to their polished and muscular style but what I find this approach lacks is emotional balance.
By the time Korngold wrote his final String Quartet No.3 in D major Op.34 he was an all but forgotten figure in Europe. Whitehouse describes the work as “appreciably more relaxed than either of its predecessors”. I am not sure I completely agree with that brief summary but it is certainly true that the performance here by the Tippetts is more so – and to the benefit of the music. The second movement Scherzo is a terrifying tour de force – just fitting the parts together let alone playing the precipitously high notes accurately is a triumph in itself. This is an excellent example of just how good the Tippetts are and crucially they allow the central meno mosso to be warm and affectionate and embrace the nostalgia it clearly evokes. But then when you compare the Dorics they are just as alertly nimble and find even more humanity in the central section. The third movement Korngold marks “like a folk tune” which both quartets play quite beautifully but again in their artless simplicity and sense of stillness the laurels just go to the Dorics. That said the closing Allegro con fuoco allows the Tippetts to demonstrate their remarkable unanimity and bravura brilliance. That said one final echo of the Much Ado Hornpipe is burly rather than joyous.
So a genuinely superbly played and beautifully recorded set of these remarkable quartets. But ultimately the Doric Quartet on Chandos has a more nuanced, subtle and indeed humane window into these mercurial works.
Nick Barnard
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