Georg Druschetzky (1745-1819)
Oboe Quartets Volume 2
Quartet in D (1780s)
Quartet in C (1807)
A Quatro in G minor (1770s)
Quartet in F (1808)
Quartet in B-flat for English horn (1770s?)
Quartet in F (1807)
Grundmann-Quartett
rec. 2020, Andreaskirche, Berlin
cpo 555 370-2 [80]
Not to disparage the album’s purely musical content, but the program note is an adventure in itself. Eckhardt van den Hoogen, author of the program note for the Grundmann Quartet’s earlier recording of Druschetzky, finds himself reëvaluating his opinion of the composer – upward – on examining previous, enthusiastic scholarship on him and on his music. You do have to wade through rather a lot of verbiage – even in the English translation, which does us few favours – to puzzle this out. At least cpo’s producers have thoughtfully put the name and opus of each individual work in boldface, so we can quickly find the relevant material.
His advocacy is admirable, but I’m not sure I’m convinced. Druschetzky is yet another of the seemingly endless run of Bohemian composers – modern Czechia was once part of the Empire, remember – who understood the Classical idiom and knew how to build forms in it. He’s good at a sort of generalized Classical “bustle” in some of the quicker movements, and there are a few imaginative touches. The closing Rondo of the 1808 F Major Quartet is a pointed, fetching miniature march; the laid-back 6/8 that closes the B-flat is appealing; and there are, briefly, some very advanced harmonies near the start of the 1807 F Major. But most of the rest hasn’t the sheer inspiration that would lift it above the run-of-the-mill.
More personality and assertiveness from the Grundmanns players might have helped. Eduard Wesley’s oboe timbre is “neat,” neither woolly nor sharp-edged; he phrases with style and enthusiasm. (The B-flat Quartet features the English horn, a nice change of pace, and here sounding oddly like a sax.) The string players are accurate and musical, weaving airy textures, and they’re flexible, willing to adjust tempi between paragraphs where it makes sense rather than chasing after a rigid beat. But I craved greater tonal presence and rhythmic thrust: too much of the playing is wan and undercharacterized. A number of closing cadences lack impact, and the scales at the end of the C Major’s Rondo are runny.
Oddly, everything pulls together for the concluding Quartet in F: the string playing is focused and rhythmically more proactive, giving this score a far stronger profile than its predecessors on the program. But it’s too little, too late to save the album as a whole.
Good sound, with a subtle, unobtrusive ambience. But I’d say this is for Classical completists only.
Stephen Francis Vasta
stevedisque.wordpress.com/blog
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