BaL 29.06.19 - Mozart: Piano Quartets 1 & 2

[jayne lee wilson]

You can listen to excerpts of course or buy the download here....

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA30011

Listening to the k478 larghetto earlier, Kuijken was poised, elegant, a little statuesque (slower than usual) with lovely string playing; Badura-Skoda warmer and more flowing, beautiful again.... two recordings to reward the seeker after truth and beauty....there is a wide range on Qobuz.

Listening very slowly at the moment with unpleasant, dentally-induced migraine, minor if exhausting procedure today, hope it helps but this isn't over yet....... it would be nice to take fewer ibuprofen at last....

Hope to give these two a closer listen soon, they sound very appealing... and there's no better composer for medicinal purposes.

[Darloboy]

Interestingly, for the last 3 weeks the winning choices have been the same as they were the last time those pieces were featured on BaL. I’ve been a listener since 1991 and can’t remember this ever happening before.

In case anyone wants to see if they’ll make it 4 in a row, last time out for the piano quartets was in 1999: recommended version on period instruments was the Mozartean Players. Modern recording choice was Giuranna/Beaux Arts Trio

[Mal]

... last time out for the piano quartets was in 1999: ... Modern recording choice was Giuranna/Beaux Arts Trio

On the Beaux Arts (BA), I liked their slow movement of K478 more than anything else I've sampled. But I have doubts about the first movement. Maybe trying too hard, and instruments not balancing? In fact, I skipped it half way through... The only "middling" review of the BA I've read has been from Bernard O'H on Amazon, who I quote because he seems to be agreeing with what I heard:

"... I have lived with the Beaux Art Trio's performances of Mozart's Piano Quartets since the mid-1980s... I have defended them rigorously against denunciations... If... you rely on performances of this stature to place these works in the scheme of things, you'll amiably state that K 473 and K 493 are top-drawer. In actual fact ... Mozart never wrote anything greater than the first movement of K 478..."

After listening to the BA I looked for someone to match them in the slow movement, and tried Haebler & chums. But I started listening from the beginning and was blown away by their first movement. The "chums" (Karajan's BPO elite string players!) are amazing, providing wonderful support and balance to Haebler's lyrcism. The violinist I found especially good, had to look him up, turned out to be Michel Schwalbé, BPO leader from 1957 to 1985:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/29/michel-schwalbe

That said, I still preferred the BA in the slow movement.

[Barbirollians]

I am very fond of the Lewis/Leopold recording but nothing can compare with the old Curzon recordings on Decca for me.

[Barbirollians]

On the Beaux Arts (BA), I liked their slow movement of K478 more than anything else I've sampled. But I have doubts about the first movement. Maybe trying too hard, and instruments not balancing? In fact, I skipped it half way through... The only "middling" review of the BA I've read has been from Bernard O'H on Amazon, who I quote because he seems to be agreeing with what I heard:

"... I have lived with the Beaux Art Trio's performances of Mozart's Piano Quartets since the mid-1980s... I have defended them rigorously against denunciations... If... you rely on performances of this stature to place these works in the scheme of things, you'll amiably state that K 473 and K 493 are top-drawer. In actual fact ... Mozart never wrote anything greater than the first movement of K 478..."

After listening to the BA I looked for someone to match them in the slow movement, and tried Haebler & chums. But I started listening from the beginning and was blown away by their first movement. The "chums" (Karajan's BPO elite string players!) are amazing, providing wonderful support and balance to Haebler's lyrcism. The violinist I found especially good, had to look him up, turned out to be Michel Schwalbé, BPO leader from 1957 to 1985:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/29/michel-schwalbe

That said, I still preferred the BA in the slow movement.

Oh dear generally if Sir Les Patterson likes something it is worth avoiding and if he hates it - it should go straight on the shortlist .

[Mal]

Oh dear generally if Sir Les Patterson likes something it is worth avoiding and if he hates it - it should go straight on the shortlist .

I find him variable, but aren't they all! :) At least he's keen... too much purple prose & too much repetition, though... I tried Curzon in the first movement of K478 on youtube but I found the sound quality off putting. Might have been the upload, just found a better one, but I still have problems with it. It's very powerful and dynamic string playing, but the balance seems wrong to me... sound quality still not great... the strings too over-powering... but Curzon does seem superb, when I can hear him:

[CallMePaul]

Withnthis BAL in mind I dug out my old Decca Eclipse LP of the Curzon/ Amadeus performances and I agree with other reviewers who still find them fresh and near the top of the pile. In many respects I prefer them to my CD version of Lewis/ Leopold, very good that this is. However, I do wish that Curzon and the Amadeus members had repeated the first movement exposition, although I am of course aware that this would have been unusual when the recordings were made. I am more than happy with what I have, but would be interested to hear a fine period instrument performance and I hope that there will be more than a token period performance illustrated.

My main beef about recent BALs is not the "twofer" format but the use of a predetermined shortlist. Is this predetermined by the reviewer (as I would hope and if so wish that he/she would explain the reasoning behind his/her choices), or, as I suspect, is the hand of producers and/or senior R3 management behind the choices?

[jayne lee wilson]

I didn’t have nearly enough time (or rather health & energy) to consider them as deeply as I would like, but (via Qobuz Studio) of the other recordings on instruments d’epoque I listened to after Sonnerie, I finally found the Kuijken Piano Quartet a little too cool, despite admiring the neo-baroque elegance and poise of it all; beautiful yes, very, but it’s rather one-paced, could do with more volatility or intensity (especially in k478).

Badura-Skoda & The Festetics have stormy intensities in the first movement, real urgency and attack, but the piano/strings ensemble occasionally sounds a little choppy, the pianism itself a little lacking in flow. Later on I thought the andante and finale rather brusque or stiff; I do like degree of tempo variable in this music.
So Bilson/Wilcock/Schlapp/Mason were the ones who pleased me, and impressed me, most; the most fully rounded-out interpretatively, with fuller, warmer sonorities, lovely flow to both pianism and performance generally, with natural, subtle but very telling rubato; the slower basic pulse through the last two movement allows a wider and subtler expressive range.These are evidently readings of profound consideration, and exquisite balance. (But beefy enough where it counts, e.g. the bass registers in the k478 finale).

Hard to choose between them (and it can vary between movements…), but if I had to choose just one I would still take Sonnerie, for that extra sense of adventure and daring, both in sonority and interpretation - of dynamics phrase and tempo. (Added attraction of Gary Cooper’s extraordinary cadenza in the finale of k478! Quite something). More spacious acoustic than many chamber recordings allow too, which is very much to my taste.

How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!

[Mal]

Professor Laura Tunbridge seems to have formidable expertise in Schumann, especially his songs, but her CV doesn't indicate any great expertise in Mozart. Looks like another Brian Cox situation, as Patrick Moore kept on pointing out, "he isn't an astronomer!" Her only Mozart publication is entitled, ‘Loving Mozart: Berhard Lang, “Ach, ich fühl’s” (Grace Moor), I Hate Mozart, Act I’, which I don't understand, but that 'I hate Mozart' is a worry, I hope she was being ironic...

https://www.music.ox.ac.uk/about/people/academic-staff/university-lecturers-and-college-fellows/laura-tunbridge/

[MickyD]

I think we can assume that every BAL is now going to be in the twofer format. :(

[cloughie]

The Prof has a very similar vocal tone to SK!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Her only Mozart publication is entitled, ‘Loving Mozart: Berhard Lang, “Ach, ich fühl’s” (Grace Moor), I Hate Mozart, Act I’, which I don't understand, but that 'I hate Mozart' is a worry, I hope she was being ironic...

That's a review of Bernhard Lang's stage work I Hate Mozart, about a production of the Mozart singspiel, Mal.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-opera-journal/article/loving-mozart-bernhard-lang-ach-ich-fuhls-grace-moor-i-hate-mozart-act-i/788C2DF3104AB7C0D347BD5CE35FBB69

... another one here:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/lang-b-i-hate-mozart

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's a review of Bernhard Lang's stage work I Hate Mozart, about a production of the Mozart singspiel, Mal.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-opera-journal/article/loving-mozart-bernhard-lang-ach-ich-fuhls-grace-moor-i-hate-mozart-act-i/788C2DF3104AB7C0D347BD5CE35FBB69

... another one here:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/...-i-hate-mozart

Sorry - I'll try again.

The article is a study of an excerpt from Lang's Music Theatre piece - the Gramophone link is to a review of the recording of the whole work.

[Mal]

Summary of the travesty:

Opens with: Emanuel Ax, Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma (Ax) 1994 Sony, “too much, too many dramatic pauses”. AMcG doesn’t agree ‘It’s attractive...’ I agree with AMcG! “Too lush for my taste.” She produces the Mozartean Players as none lush HIP example. Give me lush! Then another couple of forgettable HIP bands.

This is an awful BAL, expert on Schumann song dragged in to push a HIP Mozart agenda. Has the Period Taliban taken over the BAL production team?

Then Lewis & Leopold String Trio provide some badly needed modern ornamentation. That’s more like it, but I find it a bit stodgy compared to (say) Haebler & pals (who are not mentioned at all…)

Barenboim, his son Michael on violin, and pals, sounding a bit less stodgy. She doesn’t like the balance.

Ysaye quartet sounded quite romantic in the slow movement, but nowhere near as good as Beaux Arts for me (who are also not mentioned…). Then some more tedious HIP bands. Mozartean players “aren’t exciting, I do find that in Szell and the Budapest Quartet” she says. She’s flipped, HIP is now out and historical is in; this BAL is as nuts as Schumann. She suggests that because its a bad recording from 1946 it sounds like a period performance, suggesting this is something good…

Then Bilson and pals, over-acting with their bar room piano. I found a lot more enjoyment randomly flipping through youtube that I am listening to this “choice selection”. I’m starting to think she does actually hate Mozart. AMcG is sounding bored and grumpy, not saying much, she’s made him almost speechless at least.

She says of Schiff’s fortepiano, “you hear the limitations of the instrument”. Well stop pushing HIPP performances then!

She keeps on playing Lewis & the Leopold String Trio as her “modern, not HIPP, example”, which at least allows me to hear enough to eliminate it from my “want” list. It’s sounding fairly average to me, about the same as the Nash ensemble. Not as good as Lewis’ live performance on youtube. Barenboim ‘sags’ says AMcG, “I agree”, she says. So why doesn’t she play better examples? Probably doesn’t know they exist being a Schumann expert. “Ysaye quartet, does it have that sense of urgency?” she asks rhetorically. [No!] “All very elegant, needs more vitality… more playful from Bilson… dance like swing.” Sounds like a hoochy coochy dance. Sounds like a bar room piano.

AMcG tries desperately to find something to like about Bilson's performance, he sounds badly in need of a coffee break, like me. She chooses Bilson as her period choice, not sounding very enthused, probably wants to get back to Schumann. Her modern instrument choice, and overall choice, is the Faure quartet. Hadn’t mentioned them so far ‘cause they were hardly played & sounded a bit average. AMcG says nothing, hurries on quickly and stresses that next week we will actually have an expert on Stravinsky… I’ll be checking.

Not a mention of Beaux Arts, Brendel, Haebler, or Curzon … what a travesty!

[Pulcinella]

Sounds like a good one to have missed (busy doing something else), and one not even worth catching up with.
Thanks, Mal!