Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927)
The String Quartets
Stenhammar Quartet
rec. 2011-13, Petrus Kyrkan, Stocksund, Sweden
Reviewed in surround sound
BIS BIS2709 SACD [3 discs: 201]
This is a reissue in one box of three separate volumes covering the complete music for string quartet by Wilhelm Stenhammar. Two of them were very well reviewed on this site (Volume 1 ~ Volume 2).
String Quartet No.1 (1894) is a very promising piece for an opus 2, attractive and in some respects unusual. The opening Allegro asserts itself at once with a bold first subject, and its dotted rhythm drives proceedings with some energy in this performance. In the second-movement Mesto (sad) the melancholy is mostly gentle enough, though played with a passion that hints at something approaching tragic feelings in some passages. Over its nine minutes, the slender material may not quite compel attention throughout. The third movement is as tranquil and light-hearted, moderate in tempo with a quickening of pace near the middle (2:16). The Allegro energico finale raises the stakes. It is in rondo form, and the rondo theme and the episodes are all well characterised by the players. This movement, which apparently impressed the young Carl Nielsen at a Copenhagen performance, is most likely to appeal on a first hearing of the quartet.
The Second Quartet (1896) is quite a development compositionally. There is little in the way of clear or closed themes, and much motivic fragmentation. It is hard to pin down the sonata form process intrinsic to most quartet writing. Instead, there is a swift questing turbulence with its own appeal, and it is very well played. The musicians listen closely to each other and are alert to the frequent transitions between material. But then these pieces are all core to their repertoire. By contrast, the second-movement Andante has two clear themes, later combined, and a devotional quality. The scherzo opens with a very curt four-note cello motif whose sharp rhythmic outline drives much of the music. The Finale, marked Allegro energico and serioso, opens with a gesture reminiscent of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. There is an abundance of teeming semiquaver figuration and contrapuntal textures. The quiet coda is very effective in the hands of these players.
Quartet No.3 (1897-1900), owing to an artistic and financial crisis, took a long time to complete. It continues the engagement with Beethoven found in several of Stenhammar’s quartets, but never really sounds like that great predecessor for long: there are the resources of fin-de siècle harmony to draw upon. The opening Quasi andante features a texture of solo viola with supporting inputs from the others, and a lyrical mood. The pace picks up around 1:30, but remains far form a Beethovenian opening Allegro. The frequent fast scales are given with great dexterity, as is the ferocious start of the second-movement Presto molto agitato. The Lento sostenuto variations offer some respite from the busy writing, but the Finale is another Presto molto agitato, much the longest movement at nearly eleven minutes, full of fascinating incidents.
The booklet note describes String Quartet No.4 (1904-1909) as “the most important of Stenhammar’s string quartets”. The composer thought highly enough of it to dedicate it to Jean Sibelius. All four movements quite often sound harmonically advanced, especially the first, without abandoning tonality. There is a rich slow movement, and a scherzo that deploys contrapuntal techniques at times. The last movement, headed “Aria variata”, is an Andante semplice, a set of variations on a rather haunting Swedish folk song, first introduced on solo violin. It is a fine summation of a fine work.
The disc with Quartets 3-4 includes the Elegy and Intermezzo from incidental music written in 1919 for a staging of Hjalmar Bergman’s play Lodolezzi sjunger. The Elegy was the overture and the Intermezzo an entr’acte. The scoring was for string quartet and a small part for flute in the Elegy, played here by the second violin. The music makes an intriguing appendix to his series of quartets.
After the harmonic asperities of the Fourth Quartet, the Fifth String Quartet “Serenade” (c.1910) is deliberately lighter (and shorter, at 19 minutes). By far its longest movement is the second, called “Ballata” and marked Allegretto scherzando, based on a tragi-comical ballad sending up courtship ritual. The scherzo, the shortest movement in any of these works at just under two minutes, still (very fleetingly) makes its mark. The energetic finale deploys fugal texture without imperilling the light-hearted serenade character of the work.
String Quartet No.6 (1916) returns us to the serious world of the other earlier works. I found this piece rather elusive at first, but increasingly beguiling. After an appealing first-movement exposition, there are repeated descending scales (from 2:30) with obscure developmental purpose (the booklet writes of “very abstract shapes”), and the finale behaves similarly. The brief scherzo and the Poco adagio slow movement are easier to grasp. Overall there is a real sense of stylistic exploration and a highly original approach to the quartet genre, for all the classical references one might discern. Certainly this is music I want to return to.
This disc includes what was then the world premiere recording of the F minor Quartet. The work is far from negligible juvenilia. Stenhammar was unhappy with the finale. He even spoke of “Quartet No. 3 with the bad finale”, and withdrew it after the premiere. He never got around to rewriting that finale as planned, the 1900 F major work became the official number three, and he in effect abandoned this quartet around 1916, when he completed number six. Fhe finale, if not the strongest movement of the four, is actually quite enjoyable, as is the whole quartet. Stenhammar can be regarded as the composer of seven, not just six, string quartets well worth getting to know. This is the only complete set of seven, and is persuasively played. I doubt this music had more skilled and committed advocacy than it receives from the Stenhammar Quartet.
As on most BIS SACDs, the sound quality is first-class, with atmospheric surround-sound ambience. (I find surround sound especially appealing for chamber music.) The three original booklets, also included, feature attractive cover art by the composer’s great contemporary and compatriot, playwright August Strindberg, who was also a gifted painter. The picture on the is Sunrise over the Rooftops by Eugène Jansson from 1903, so the evocative images all come from the country and period of the quartets – the Swedish company’s typical attention to design detail.
Signe Rotter-Broman’s fine booklet notes in English, Swedish, German and French give some analysis of the music and the composition history of each work, and place them in the context of Stenhammar’s career.
Roy Westbrook
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