Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)  
Complete String Quartets Volume 2
Quartet Movement in B flat  (1865)
String Quartet No.3 in E flat minor Op.30 (1876)
The Seasons Op.37a (1875-76, excerpts arr. Marie-Louise de Jong and David Faber)
Dudok Quartet Amsterdam
rec. 2022/23, De Buitensociëteit, Zutphen, Netherlands
Rubicon RCD1124 [61]

This is the second and last volume of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam’s  survey of Tchaikovsky’s complete string quartets, with his early single-movement String Quartet in B-flat major and his final String Quartet No. 3.  There is uniquely some further string quartet music, since two members of the Dudok Quartet have made arrangements of four of his piano works, selected from the compilation of twelve movements representing the twelve months of the year and (slightly oddly) called The Seasons Op. 37a. These make this issue unique, since by definition there can be no comparator yet with these premiere recordings of the musicians’ own arrangements  They even offer the  sheet music of these arrangements for free download from the quartet’s website. The Dudok Quartet explain in the booklet that they now use “unwound gut strings for music written before 1900”, since ”the sound…is much more immediate than that of modern synthetic or steel strings” and “more flexible, raw and intense”. This recording often supports these claims.

Tchaikovsky wrote several pieces for string quartet in his student years of the 1860’s, the last of which was either a one-movement String Quartet in B flat or an abandoned B flat Quartet of which only the first movement was completed. It is a sonata form movement framed unusually by two slow sections, and thus is marked Allegro misterioso – Allegro con moto – Allegro misterioso. The opening Adagio recalls late Beethoven, with something of the same spiritual effect of Op.130 (also in B flat of course). Certainly the Dudok performance evokes the earlier master. Perhaps the work is too close at times to its model, and that is why it never progressed to a multi-movement work. The Dudok players clearly believe in it, and make enough of this twelve-minute piece to justify its inclusion here, and leave us regretting that the work never gained more movements.

Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No.3 in E flat minor is his final, and best, work in the form. It has two substantial movements, the first (sixteen minutes) and the slow third (ten minutes), while the second is a four minute scherzo, and the fourth forms the six minute rondo finale. The opening five minutes of this quartet is a good place as any to sample the ingratiating sound of the players’ gut strings, in both solos and ensemble, warm and natural. The E flat minor key is not ideal for strings, as six flats can be a challenge for intonation, even before the switch to gut strings – there is some interesting comment on all this in the booklet note by the quartet. But the accuracy of their playing is formidable.

So too is their feeling for the idiom in this at times highly passionate music. The piece was written in memory of violinist Ferdinand Laub, who was the leader when the composer’s first two numbered quartets were premiered. The big first movement proceeds with a sense of inevitability despite the variety of texture and motion involved, the musicians listening to each other closely as they share the ideas around, in an interpretation that feels lived in, not just learned for the recording. The brief scherzo flashes past, in brilliantly athletic playing, almost too fleeting to allow us to move on from the tremendous first movement before we are into the sorrowing Andante funebre e doloroso. The hushed chords making a haunting opening, the blend of the gut strings ideal. The central lyrical melody is affectingly delivered, as touching an envoi for a musician friend as can be imagined. The finale takes us far from such feelings, such that the composer briefly had some concerns about it, but played as it is here it makes a satisfying close.

I don’t know a better account of the Third Quartet than this one, although I remain admiring of the Borodin Quartet’s Teldec cycle of the three numbered  quartets, the solitary movement of the B flat piece that opens this disc, plus the Sextet version of the “Souvenirs de Florence”. The only time I have heard the Third Quartet live it was the Borodins who played it, convincing me of its high stature. But the Dudok Quartet play it just as well, and they are very well recorded, so that the distinctive timbres of the gut strings register. Curiously the booklet has no notes on the music, but there is that interesting essay by the players. Perhaps the first volume of this cycle, which I have not seen, has the notes on the music itself. But no-one in search of a fine account of Tchaikovsky’s Third Quartet will be disappointed with this.

Roy Westbrook

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