Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
String Quartet No.1 in A major, Op.16 (1921-23)
String Quartet No.2 in E flat major, Op.26 (1933)
String Quartet No.3 in D major, Op.34 (1945)
Piano Quintet in E major, Op.15 (1921)
String Sextet in D major, Op.10 (1914-16)
Pacifica Quartet
Orion Weiss (piano), Milena Pájaro-van de Stadt (viola), Eric Kim (cello)
rec. 2024/25, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, UK
Cedille CDR90000240 [2 CDs: 148]
It makes perfect sense to record all three of Korngold’s String Quartets as a number of groups have done, prominently the Doric Quartet on Chandos. However, it makes just as much sense, if you run to a second disc, to add other chamber works. The Flesch Quartet on ASV add the Sextet and the Aron on CPO add the Piano Quintet. The Pacifica Quartet, with guests, go one better adding both the Sextet and the Piano Quintet.
The quartets handily reflect consecutive stylistic affiliations – the First shows expressionistic and early Schoenbergian influence, the Second is a cleaner retrenchment whilst the Third is filmic. That’s not to say that there isn’t intermingling of these elements but it does reflect their stance over the decades – 1921-23, 1933 and 1945. The Pacifica’s corporate sonority tends to the lean so this never leads to an over-intensification of expressive weight. That’s apt in No.1 where intensity dissolves into lyrical reflection almost from the very beginning and where a touching intimacy in the slow movement is never allowed to over-inflate the tenor of the music. The wittily parodic March in the third movement reveals the group’s admirably clean and clear tone production, those feints toward expressionism emerging naturally conceived.
The Second Quartet is harmonically sparer than the First and doesn’t plumb late-romanticism as deeply. Given its more limited compass it’s a more concise, unhurried work, with a songful euphonious beauty seemingly predicated on his contemporaneous stage shows, and ending with a deliciously stylised Waltz. Quartet No.3 dates from 1945 deep into his Hollywood, years though it wasn’t premiered until 1949. It’s chromatic but still joyfully songful and Korngold ensures that three of the four movements are saturated in film music – you might recognise motifs from ‘The Sea Wolf’ for instance – and marries mellifluousness with zesty richness of material. Due to the length of the works it’s proved impossible to get the three quartets onto a single CD so the vibrant, shamelessly ‘old school’ finale of this quartet is on CD 2.
The Piano Quintet dates from the period of the First Quartet but unlike the four-movement quartets, is cast in three. The thematic material is rich and much is pitched at the level of extravagant amplitude. The graded climaxes in the first movement are perceptively achieved by the Pacifica, who have been well-balanced with pianist Orion Weiss. So often Korngold infused his songs into his instrumental or chamber music and he does so explicitly in the central Adagio, with resonant results. Simin Ganatra clearly enjoys the cadential violin writing in the finale. The String Sextet is the earliest work here, dating from the early period of the First World War and he wrote it concurrently with Violanta. It’s an opulent work and shows Mahlerian cadences in several places where the music’s anguished quality is at its peak, but it remains warmly lyric overall, its finale peppered with insouciance and high spirits.
I have nothing but praise for the Pacifica Quartet and their collaborators and recording and if this more extended look at Korngold’s chamber music appeals – if you want to branch out beyond the quartets – you will be assured of the most perceptive guides.
Jonathan Woolf
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