Gypsy melodies
Talich Quartet with Filip Herák (double bass) and Ľubomir Gašpar (cimbalom, Kaval)
rec. February and July 2024, Jihočeská Philharmonic, České Budějovice
La Dolce Volta LDV129 [59]

The eminent Talich Quartet are letting down their hair with this release which continues a theme of recent years, familiar to close observers of Czech music on disc, which is to make arrangements, of various kinds, drawn from the country’s song repertoire. In this case, the focus is on Dvořák and Janáček augmented by others from the East of Europe.

Violinist Jiří Kabát studied composition with Jiří Gemrot, who has done much arranging in this field – for instance he arranged three of Dvorak’s Evening Songs, Op.3 on Pentatone’s disc with Magdalena Kožená and Simon Rattle. Kabát here has gone one better and removed the voice entirely, recasting the songs for string quartet by virtue of distributing the vocal line among the string voices. I can’t deny the sensitivity of his work, especially in No.3 All around the woods are still and the famous fourth Songs my mother taught me and the sixth setting, Flowing sleeves and trousers, where he catches the insouciant rhythm. The first of the two selected Moravian Duets in particular, The Captive, responds well to his craftsmanship.

The extracts from Leoš Janáček’s Moravian Folk Poetry in Song finds an altogether tangier milieu in which an arranger can work and he threads some songs together to form a kind of set, sometimes as many as five songs in a grouping. These are separately tracked in groups. Lover-Killer, one of the most dramatic of the settings, finds the arranger adopting a more emollient stance than a declamatory singer would adopt. I’m not sure the string quartet is the proper medium for this kind of song, in particular, as it blunts the composer’s acidly assertive writing, consequently smoothing out the inherent violence of the song. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the final song, Musicians, another of my favourites, which works well as a quartet setting, evoking Moravian village green sonorities.

For the remainder of the programme the Talich Quartet are joined by Filip Herák (double bass) and Ľubomir Gašpar (cimbalom, Kaval) which gives the arrangements that follow both a sonic depth and a rustic feel appropriate for Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, most particularly in Gašpar’s long cimbalom introduction to the Shawl Dance. He also plays the Kaval in the Dance from Bucsum – the Kaval is a kind of laryngitic flute. Georges Boulanger remains a popular figure for collectors, though he was actually born Ghiţă Bulencea. He was a violin virtuoso who married virtuosity with panache and if you can hear his pieces with piano, in particular, you won’t forget them. Two of his hits have been arranged for quartet by Tomáš Ille and though he preserves some piquancy in the Serenade Tzigane, they rather left me cold. He has also arranged Grigoraş Dinicu’s Hora Mărţişorului but without evoking the sound world of Dinicu’s own ensemble. Finally, Alexej Aslamas arranges Ivan Vasiliev’s Deux Guitares, that famous old piece. No, it doesn’t sound like Roby Lakatos’s version – Lakatos is the Ghiţă Bulencea of our time – but it gives the Talich Quartet a decent vehicle. Much though I admire the group, however, I can’t help feeling they are a little stylistically removed from some of this music.

There’s a typically sumptuous La Dolce Volta hard-back presentation and a most sympathetic recorded balance. I can’t be censorious about the whole question of transplanting a vocal line for string quartet as this is, after all, the whole purpose of the exercise. I enjoyed these arrangements, even as I realised I’d probably never listen to them again.

Jonathan Woolf  

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Contents
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Gypsy Songs, Op.55, B.104 arr. Jiří Kabát
Moravian Duets, Op.32 Nos B.60 and B.62 arr. Jiří Kabát
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Moravian Folk Poetry in Song – excerpts arr. Jiří Kabát
Moravian Folk Ballads arr. Miroslav Kolacia
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Romanian Folk Dances, Sz.56
Georges Boulanger (1893-1958)
Serenade Tzigane arr. Tomáš Ille
Avant de mourir arr. Tomáš Ille
Grigoraş Dinicu (1889-1949)
Hora Mărţişorului arr. Tomáš Ille
Ivan Vasiliev (1810-1870)
Deux Guitares arr. Alexej Aslamas