Budapest
Quartet with Hans Mahlke:
Josef Roismann, violin Alexander
Schneider, violin
Boris Kroyt, viola Hans
Mahlke, viola
Mischa Schneider, cello
Recorded
on 15, 17 November 1932, Beethovensaal, Berlin
Issued as HMV DB.1866-8
Matrix Numbers:32-3497/3501, 32-3512, takes: all 1st except sides
3 & 5, take 2.
Download ID: 228062, 434948
(Duration
22'57")
Play
sample movement:
The
Budapest with Mahlke play this sunny, wonderful work to a turn and
the reprocessing has produced sound that seems scintillating for
its age...
- Bill Rosen
"I've
been tormenting myself for a long time with all kinds of things, a symphony,
chamber music and other stuff, and nothing will come of it. Above all
I was always used to everything being clear to me. It seems to me that
it's not going the way it used to. I'm just not going to do any more.
My whole life I've been a hard worker; now for once I'm going to be good
and lazy!"
These words,
spoken by Brahms in the summer of 1890 to his friend Eusebius Mandyczewski,
indicated the composer's plan that his String Quintet in G major would
be his final work. Despite its difficult opening, where somehow the cello
has to make itself heard from beneath the rest of the players' forte
semiquavers, caused much consternation amongst the members of the Rosé
String Quartet who began rehearsing it for the first time in November
1890 with Brahms in Vienna ("the cello...must scrape mercilessly
to be heard" warned cellist Elisabet von Herzogeberg). Despite
these warnings, and those of Brahms' great friend and ally Joachim, the
composer let it stand. The première in Vienna on November 11th,
1890, was a fabulous success.
But the
Quintet was not to be Brahms' final work - the experience of its composition
and the sensational reaction to its appearance, led the composer to reconsider.
telling a friend:
"Recently
I started variuos things, symphonies and so on, but nothing would come
out right. Then I thought: I'm really too old, and resolved energetically
to write no more. I considered that all my life I have been sufficiently
industrious and had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old
age and could enjoy it in peace. And that made me so happy, so contented,
so delighted - that all at once the writing began to go."
This 1932
recording shows little to belie its age. Perhaps the very finest detail
is to an extent sacrificed for a more overall rounded sound, but it really
is a treat for the ears. Hearing this performance, made just 42 years
after the work's première, one senses that it would have made a
perfect end to Brahms' career. But knowing what it inspired in him, at
least partly, to go on to produce, one can also be glad that it was not
the end of his music.
REVIEW
OF Brahms: Quintet #1 (Budapest Quartet, Hobday) (1937) and
Quintet #2 (Budapest Quartet, Mahlke) (1932)
Johannes
Brahms write 24 chamber music works, all of them masterpieces,
but not of equal popularity. Among those that are rarely heard
are the two string quintets. I have never heard either of
them in concert and there are relatively few recordings. At
least a partial explanation of the obscurity of the the F
Major (#1) is that it has an unconvential finale filled with
rigorous counterpoint. For the G Major (#2), there is no explanation;
it is a brilliant, sunny work filled with melody. The Budapest
Quartet with help play both quintets with splendid elan and
lean textures and far outclass their late 1950's remake for
Columbia.
String
Quintet #1
In
1882, while spending the summer at his favourite health resort,
Bad Ischl, Brahms completed his 1st String Quintet and despatched
it to his publisher Simrock (as well as the Piano Trio Op.87)
with the message, ‘I tell you, you have not ever had
anything so good from me, nor perhaps published in the last
ten years’. The Budapest open rather vigorously, but
mellow for the second theme. Their playing makes the development
very clear as Brahms subjects his exposition themes to a complex
but lively development. The recapitulation begins fortissimo
instead of piano as at the beginning.
The
second movement is a 5-part structure with a sustained opening
part followed by a slow and then a fast scherzo. The third
and final movement is rather unusual. It begins in a strict
fugal fashion followed by a more lyrical second theme. But
the whole movement buzzes with contrapuntal ingenuity.
The
reprocessing is not one of Pristine Audio's miracles, but
it is more than adequate to allow appreciation of the wonderful
music and performance.
String
Quintet #2
Brahms’
Second String Quintet was also composed at Ischl, 8 years
later in the summer of 1890. Brahms intended it as his swansong,
saying "I have worked enough; now let the young fellows
take over".
Brahms
was only 57 when he wrote this Quintet, and it sounds like
anything but a swansong. It is a mature, lively work written
by a composer at the height of his powers. It was not to be
his chamber music swansong; he later discovered the great
clarinettist, Richard Muhlfeld, and went on to write four
works for him: the Clarinet Quintet, the Clarinet Trio and
two Clarinet Sonatas.
The
Second Quintet is a thrilling, ebullient four-movement work.
The Budapest plays the scintillating opening with great panache:
the theme in the cello and violas with the violins creating
great excitement with high arpeggios and trills. There is
slowing and mellowing for the winsome second theme. The Budapest
make the development clear as Brahms undertakes a forthright
and lean workingout. There are distant modulations and the
recapitulation ends as it began with the high violin tumult.
A
somber, ethereal slow movement is ABA form consists of a sustained
opening section interspersed with a more lively variant. The
third movement is one of those Brahms slow intermezzi that
stands in place of a scherzo. A fast, brilliant finale begins
with rapid viola figurations leading to a stalwart tutti.
and an exposition rich with themes. The development is powerfully
driven yet graceful. An even faster, light, folkish coda ends
the work.
The
Budapest with Mahlke play this sunny, wonderful work to a
turn and the reprocessing has produced sound that seems scintillating
for its age.
The
Budapest with Mahlke play this sunny, wonderful work to a turn and
the reprocessing has produced sound that seems scintillating for
its age...
- Bill Rosen
