Fanfare

March/April 1998 , Volume: 21 , # 4

by David Denton  

WUORINEN String Quartet No. 2. HARVEY String Quartet No. 1. PETERSON String Quartet No. 1 * The Group for Contemporary Music * KOCH 3-7615-2 (59:01)

There was a move in the latter part of this century for composers to use extramusical effects in their string quartets. As many had to be seen as well as heard, it did at least spare us the prospect of these works being preserved on disc. Let us hope sanity prevails, and fortunately a number of today's outstanding composers are revealing there is much to be explored in the conventional scope of the quartet.

This disc is a good example of the finest modern string-quartet writing. Two of the composers come from the States and one from England, and all are influenced by the Austro-German tradition, Schoenberg being the linking factor. Charles Wuorinen asserts that he was nurtured on the music of Schoenberg, and has composed three quartets very much under his influence, the Second coming from 1979. Each of the four short, linked movements has its own fast and slow music. They are described by the composer as "the fusing of independent wills in the realization of a single entity," the work bringing the four members together to speak with a single tongue. Yet the modernity, the astringency, and the percussive nature of the score is listener friendly. If you have an aversion to modern string music, this may well be your starting point for conversion. The rocking theme that opens the first movement immediately draws you into a score that has many fascinating sound colors, the slow sections having a feeling of early Bartók.

Jonathan Harvey was born in 1939, a year after Wuorinen, and is considered one of the most interesting English composers working in the second half of this century. He studied with Hans Keller and Edwin Stein, both composers in Schoenberg's circle. He has experimented with many musical media, but here returns to conventional resources. The soft and shimmering opening has an element of French Impressionism, and from this one note the work grows, sometimes angry, sometimes peaceful, always with an expanding vitality. Having known the work for a number of years, I strongly recommend the quartet to you, though it could well take a little longer to appreciate than the Wuorinen quartet.

Wayne Peterson, now 68, names his two greatest influences as Dimitri Mitropoulus and Ernst Krenek, who passed to him their ardent belief in Schoenberg. The First Quartet was composed in 1983 and is in one continuous movement of around 17 minutes in duration. The vitality and pungency are juxtaposed with relaxed passages of tender melodic inspiration, the cello playing an important role as soloist. The work proceeds in a series of short fragments, occasionally coalescing, then shooting off to fragment again. The result is continually fascinating, with the most generous and ingenious use of tonal colors.

This is a reissue of a disc that made its first appearance in 1993 (Koch KIC CD-7121). Let us hope that it now remains in the catalog. The Group of Contemporary Music -- which had as one of its founders Charles Wuorinen -- plays superbly. It brings clarity to the most complex moments, and has that ability of making modern music easily intelligible. That may sound like a basic point, but many quartets we hear in this field of music seem to go out of their way to make music of today sound difficult to appreciate.

The recording quality is a major help, and the balance between instruments and the analytical clarity helps to elucidate the busy passages. Most fervently recommended.