Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Doppio Quartetto in D Minor, P. 27 (1900)
Theo Loevendie (b.1930)
Changes for double quartet (2024)
George Enescu (1881-1955)
Octet for strings in C Major (1900)
Roctet
rec. 2024, Muziekcentrum van de Omroep, Hilversum, The Netherlands
Challenge Classics CC720001 [65]

Here is something of a musical treasure trove; an hour’s worth of unfamiliar music, played by a superlative ensemble featuring works by major composers. Much as I love the music of Ottorino Respighi and George Enescu, I had never encountered their works for string octet (or double quartet in Respighi’s case). The work of Dutch composer Theo Loevendie was completely unfamiliar – although the fact that he has written this dynamic Changes presented here in its world premiere recording in his nineties(!) did rather jump off the page.

In contrast both the Respighi and Enescu pieces are the products of prodigious youth; Respighi’s written in his early twenties with the Enescu produced in his late teens. Both are notable for the confidence and skill of the writing. The significant difference is that the Respighi does feel like a ‘work-in-progress’ with the composer still seeking a definitive musical voice and style. Astonishingly, the Enescu springs from the loudspeakers with the composer’s authentic mature voice clearly present and unwavering. The nearest equivalent I can make for this degree of youthful bravura certainty are the teenage works of Erich Korngold.

But to deal with the music in order. The disc opens with Respighi’s Doppio Quartetto in D minor P.27.  The “P numbers” refer to the catalogue compiled by Potito Pedarra which dates the work from 1900. This catalogue can be viewed at Wikipedia ‘List of compositions by Ottorino Respighi’ and shows the work to be part of a series of essentially apprentice compositions. The work is in a ‘standard’ four movements with the slow movement second, an allegro vivace Intermezzo third before a Presto all’Ungherese finale with the total work lasting a compact 20:05. Quite why Respighi chose the title as a double quartet rather than an octet is not clear either from the liner note or the performance. I was half expecting to hear the musical material audibly shared between two distinct groupings but as recorded here it sounds as one. Before considering the music this leads me to my only concern regarding this new disc. The music is never less than fascinating and the playing is excellent but I did find the engineering/recording slightly close and oppressive. Both of the main works are richly scored and dynamically written. The result of the engineering here is rather unrelenting with the quieter dynamics in particular marginalised. For me both of these inventive and impressive scores would have benefitted from a more natural airy recording. Of course the benefit of this close microphone placement is a clear sense of the complexity and detail of the writing superbly rendered by the Dutch ensemble Roctet. The liner states that Roctet are; “the Netherlands’ first permanent string octet” although it appears that their regular ‘day jobs’ are as members of the Netherlands Radio PO. Certainly the quality of the individual and ensemble playing speaks of the highest level of string playing.

As a work I found the Respighi to be less individual or compelling than the Enescu. Respighi wrote the work in Bologna shortly before he went to St. Petersburg for two years as principal violist at the Imperial Theatre there. More significantly for his future development as a composer, he took time in St. Petersburg to study with Rimsky-Korsakov. No surprise that this pre-Rimsky double quartet has more echoes of the Brahms sextets than it does of the later post-Rimsky luxuriance. As with Enescu, Respighi’s level of understanding of string writing is audible throughout in terms of the effectiveness but also demanding nature of the music. What the music lacks yet is a strongly defined personality. Looking through the Pedarra catalogue shows the young composer focussing on smaller ensembles and forms with a single work Salutazione angelica P.17 for soprano, choir and orchestra suggesting anything on a larger scale. Post this double quartet Respighi immediately started writing for full orchestra suggesting perhaps that composing this work gave him the confidence to try larger  canvasses. For sure the richness of the writing and the evident understanding of the potential of this scale of a large string group is assured. Whether or not it musically coheres is less certain. I found myself enjoying effects and gestures more than whole musical paragraphs.  That said, the closing Presto all’Ungherese is great fun and played with real relish by Roctet – a kind of Hungarian lovechild of Brahms and Mendelssohn. Certainly all the players led by Joris van Rijn play the Magyar sentiment of the central moody passage to maximum great effect.  The final pages romp home in a way that would delight any audience.

The Romanian composer George Enescu is still known today although just the level of his extraordinary, prodigious genius is perhaps less appreciated. Aged seven(!) he was the youngest student admitted to the Vienna Conservatory. Pablo Casals considered him; “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart” and “one of the greatest geniuses of modern music”. His most famous violin pupil Yehudi Menhuin described him as; “the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence” he had ever experienced.  As the liner for this disc says; “at the tender age of eighteen [he had] already gathered more musical experience than most musicians twice his age”. 

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this work is that at eighteen – the same is true of the teenaged Korngold mentioned above – Enescu was writing scores that posterity would reveal as being inimically by him. If Respighi doffs his hat towards giants of the (recent) past, Enescu is strikingly his own man. I cannot think of another score from 1900 that is quite so harmonically free and texturally complex (for a chamber work). Yes of course Strauss had nearly completed his major tone poems and Mahler his first four symphonies, but Brahms had only died three years before and Verklärte Nacht had been completed the year before but would not be premiered for another two years. The scale and aspiration of this work dwarfs the Respighi. Again it is in four movements which here run to 37:33 but it is the structure – a sonata form that arches over the entire work – that again points towards a creative mind operating on a higher level than many can aspire to. As a virtuoso violinist in his own right, Enescu makes pretty terrifying demands which Roctet respond to – again – with relish. That Enescu was consciously testing the potential boundaries and possibilities of chamber music is evident from the composer’s note to the published score – viewable here: https://ks15.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f1/IMSLP91446-PMLP187920-Enescu_-Octet,_Op._7(score).pdf.  He suggests that the work can (should?) be played by a full orchestral string section although the conductor can choose at their own discretion for certain passages to be played ‘solo’. 

Certainly the very opening gesture suggests the scale and muscularity of a symphonic string section but of course a tight-knit and accomplished group such as Roctet can offer a precision and textural clarity that helps the listener navigate this demanding score. The level of harmonic and motivic complexity to this work is striking and genuinely remarkable given the age of the composer and his confident handling of the material. Perhaps his youth shows through is the slightly unrelenting complexity of the material and thickness of the textures. The piece plays continuously with pauses marking the movement boundaries. About twenty minutes in it is something of a relief to reach the relative tranquillity of the third movement Lentement.  Part of the problem is that the close microphone placement does lift the dynamic sound floor so the quieter passages – although played with finesse and sensitivity do not sound as truly hushed as they might while the frequent ff and fff marking leap from the speakers. The third movement achieves a simplicity that is both effective and welcome and is played by Roctet with exactly the right kind of unmannered directness. In Enescu’s single-arch-sonata-form structure these central movements act as the development while the finale – marked Mouvement de valse bien rythmée is the recapitulation. But the waltz here has more of Ravel’s delirium rather than any Viennese poise. Again I did find myself wondering if Korngold knew any of Enescu’s work. Even allowing for his remarkable precocity, Korngold’s music lay at least a decade in the future with the sextet closer to fifteen years. The sense of recapitulation gives the work a satisfying structural coherence while the swirling waltz time sheds new musical light on the same melodic material. This is a remarkable work that receives a powerfully compelling performance. In many ways possibly more masterly than some of Enescu’s later scores which share the same virtuosic handling of instruments, textures and harmony but can feel rather sprawling and discursive. Unsurprisingly, given the work’s scale and power and technical demands, the catalogue reveals quite a number of alternate performances often given by a collective of ‘star’ players.  Clearly I cannot compare this current version to any of those but in its own right this is deeply impressive.

Sitting between these two works from 1900 is Theo Loevendie’s Changes written for Roctet in 2024.  This is a compact work that lasts 7:19 and the title refers to the jazz technique of navigating the chord progressions in a work.  Loevendie’s own background was as a jazz performer and composer.  Remarkably this new works appears to have been written when he was 94 years old.  The liner quotes the composer as saying; “as the piece took shape, the link to the title became more elusive” which is probably a way of saying it does not sound at all jazzy.  However the textures are significantly ‘cleaner’ than the Enescu and Loevendie makes strong contrasts between stasis and movement, loud and soft, full group and solo gesture.  I have not yet spent enough time with this score to get a sense of what it is trying to achieve or express but clearly the performance here by Roctet is authoritative and well-prepared.

So a highly enjoyable voyage of discovery with three quite different scores receiving virtuosic and musically insightful performances from this talented Dutch ensemble.

Nick Barnard

Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free.