Erling Bloch, the pioneering Danish chamber musician
Original HMV and Tono Recordings 1937-54
Danacord DACOCD1001-1006 [6 CDs: 473]
The distinguished soloist and chamber player, Erling Bloch (1904-1992), was a pivotal figure in Danish music life for decades. He had a duo with Holger Lund Christiansen, his own eponymous quartet, and a flute ensemble with leading players such as flautist Holger Gilbert Jespersen, cellist Asger Lund Christiansen and Holger Lund Christiansen. For many years he was a leading teacher.
Danacord’s 6-CD box pays due tribute to his recordings and his legacy, not just as an exponent of the music of Nielsen but also as a committed player of the music of Holmboe, Riisager, Schultz and Danish Classicists and Romantics. Bloch, though, wasn’t simply a ‘national’ artist as his discography shows – he was committed to Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. He could do the bread-and-butter but also added succulent toppings.
His quartet is represented here in a similarly wide-ranging repertoire. There are two Beethoven Quartets, Op 130 and Op.132 both recorded in the early 1950s. They share a stylish musicality, and a neatness of expression. They don’t exude the expressive depth of the Busch or the rich buttressed sound of the Budapest or Amadeus, preferring a lighter sound and a generally refined lyricism. The second disc is an especially potent example of the quartet functioning on behalf of Nielsen and Holmboe. They play the Opp.14 and 44 quartets of Nielsen. Even in the not-wholly distinctive sound world of the former, they excavate the music’s romantic late affiliations and in Op.44, a very much bigger and thematically interesting work, their beautifully balanced playing of the pious slow movement is especially distinctive. Holmboe’s First Quartet, Op.46 opens with Hans Kassow’s viola solo, a moment reminiscent of Bartók’s own First Quartet. This is an especially fine and clear recording that allows access to every firefly element of Holmboe’s writing.
There are examples of the quartet’s way with Haydn, with a pleasant ‘Lark’ and the Haydn-Hofstetter Quartet, a rushed Schubert Quartettsatz, Stravinsky’s Concertino, the pizzicato-drenched Scherzo from Hakon Borrensen’s Quartet No.2, and Bartók’s Quartet No.6. This last is especially interesting as it was recorded in April 1948, one month after the Hungarian Quartet recorded it and two years after the premiere recording by the Gertler Quartet. The Juilliard’s first recording followed in 1949. It’s a direct, admirable performance and shows real competence in negotiating the work’s expressive parameters which tend, in this performance, to the muted.
As a chamber player Bloch’s sonority was inclined to be a touch abrasive. Whether this was entirely a product of personal choice, or microphone placement, I’m not quite sure but he reminds me somewhat of the English violinist Jean Pougnet who was recording at the same time, who also had an acidic, tense element to his tone production. I happen, in Bloch’s case, to find his sonata recordings to be less impressive than those he made as a quartet leader – even though, in the quartets too, there are razory elements, with a consistently fast vibrato. During the war, he recorded three Beethoven Sonatas, Nos. 5, 8 and 9 with rather acidic results. The ensemble work with Christiansen is excellent and speeds are consistently on the move but I’m pretty sure he was too close to the microphone in the Kreutzer (where there is some chuffing on one of the sides), and his phrasing is too short-breathed in the Spring, the tone too tight and unvaried.
Mozart’s Sonata 28, K.380 was recorded in 1941 and is nicely phrased with some deft hunting horns in the Rondo finale but is limited in terms of tone colours. Schubert’s Fantasy, D.934 is stylishly done, for which Christiansen must also take great credit. One of the major statements in the box, because this was repertoire with which he was associated so closely, is Nielsen’s Violin Sonata No.2, Op.35 recorded in May 1938. For their 30-CD Historic Nielsen box, Danacord preferred the later Emil Telmányi-Victor Schiøler recording of 1954, a fine one, certainly, but this earlier example is just as persuasive in many ways. Bloch plays with rapt attention to mood and effect, not least in the expressive slow movement.
His Piano Trio, with Torben Anton Svendsen (cello) and Holger Lund Christiansen (piano), plays Beethoven’s Variations on ‘Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu’ and were probably the first trio to do so on disc since the days of the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals trio. They are faster than their eminent predecessors but obviously can’t replicate their inimitable outsize personalities. Gade’s Trio in F major, Op.42 is played with real charm and affecting lyricism alike.
The Flute ensemble recorded Holmboe’s crisp, taut bipartite Serenata, Haydn’s Divertimento in G major, Kuhlau’s elegant, classically-conceived and mellifluous Flute Quintet in D major – the ensemble in this piece includes the two violas of Hans Kassow and Lavard Friisholm – Rissager’s Serenade (full of arcadian verdancy and light as thistledown), Svend Schultz’s crisp Concertino and a few other brief works.
The transfers have been excellently done. I only had a very few problems with some obtrusive clicks in the Op.130 quartet and a bad side join in the Heiliger Dankgesang movement of Op.132. The notes are in Danish and English and guide one through Bloch’s life and work adeptly and admiringly.
Bloch was certainly a, or maybe, as the box insists, ‘the’ pioneering Danish chamber musician. The body of recordings that he made for HMV and Tono attests to his importance to the national scene but for today’s listeners it has considerable interest beyond mere borders. It’s a valuable and interesting set.
Jonathan Woolf
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Contents
CD 1
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet No.13 in B flat major, Op.130 (1825-26)
Violin Sonata No.8 in G major, Op.30 No.3 (1802)
Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, Kreutzer (1804)
Erling Bloch Quartet
Erling Bloch (violin): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
CD 2
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
String Quartet No.3 in E flat major, Op.14 (1899)
String Quartet No.4 in F major, Op.44 (1906 rev.1919)
Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)
String Quartet No.1, Op.46 (1949)
Erling Bloch Quartet
CD 3
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet in F major, Op.3 (probably Roman Hofstetter 1742-1815)
String Quartet in D major, Op.65 No.5 The Lark (1790)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Quartet No.12 in C minor, D.703 Quartettsatz (1820)
Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)
Serenata for flute, violin, cello and piano, Op.18 (1940)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Concertino for String Quartet (1920)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
String Quartet No.6, Sz 114 (1940)
Erling Bloch Quartet
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Asger Lund Christiansen (cello): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
CD 4
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Divertimento for flute, violin and cello in G major, Hob. IV: 7
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Variations on ‘Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu for Piano Trio, Op121a (pub 1824)
Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832)
Flute Quintet No.1 in D major, Op.51 (pub 1823)
Trio for flute, violin and piano in G major, Op.119b
Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787)
Menuet for flute, violin and cello from Sonata II in G minor
Niels Gade (1817-1890)
Piano Trio in F major, Op.42 (1863)
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Asger Lund Christiansen (cello)
Erling Bloch (violin): Torben Anton Svendsen (cello): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Hans Kassow (viola): Lavard Friisholm (viola): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Erling Bloch (violin): Torben Anton Svendsen (cello): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
CD 5
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet No.15 in A minor, Op.132 (1825)
Violin Sonata No.5 in F major, Op.24 Spring (1801)
Knudåge Riisager (1897-1974)
Serenade for flute, violin and cello, Op.26b (1936)
CD 6
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Violin Sonata No.28 in E flat major, K380 (1781)
André Grétry (1741-1813)
Sonata for flute, violin, cello and piano in B flat major, Op.1
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Air Russe and Rondo from Violin Sonata No.3 in D minor, Op.10b (1810)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Fantasy for violin and piano in C major, D934 (1827)
Hakon Børresen (1876-1954)
Scherzo from Quartet No.2 in C minor (1939)
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Violin Sonata No.2, Op.35 (1912)
Svend S. Schultz (1913-1998)
Concertino for flute, violin, cello and piano (1936)
Erling Bloch (violin): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Asger Lund Christiansen (cello): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Erling Bloch (violin): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
Erling Bloch Quartet
Holger Gilbert Jespersen (flute): Erling Bloch (violin): Torben Anton Svendsen (cello): Holger Lund Christiansen (piano)
