Ernst Toch: String Quartets 11 & 13

Ernst Toch (Composer), Buchberger Quartett (Performer, Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Buchberger Quartett
• Orchestra: Buchberger Quartett
• Composer: Ernst Toch
• Audio CD (September 18, 2001)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cpo Records
• ASIN: B00005NY42
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,848 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. String Quartet No. 11 op. 34: Sehr wuchtig, ansturmend

2. String Quartet No. 11 op. 34: Vivace molto

3. String Quartet No. 11 op. 34: Adagio

4. String Quartet No. 11 op. 34: Allegro molto

5. String Quartet No. 13 op. 74: Molto tranquillo

6. String Quartet No. 13 op. 74: Allegro non troppo

7. String Quartet No. 13 op. 74: Slow, dolcissimo con espressione

8. String Quartet No. 13 op. 74: Allegro assai

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Ernst Toch's life (1887-1964) was split between Germany, where the advent of the Nazis drove him into exile, and California, where he taught, wrote for films, and composed important, if neglected, serious music. CPO's survey of Toch's string quartets (eight of the 13 survive) begins with one from each part of his career. The Quartet No. 11 was commissioned by Hindemith for a 1924 chamber festival, where it had a well-deserved success. The opening movements are immediately engrossing, with attractive melodies and rhythmic vitality. The Adagio is reminiscent of the slow movements in Bartók's quartet and the finale is full of driving energy. The 13th Quartet dates from 1953, during Toch's Indian Summer burst of creative energy. Unlike his other works, it dabbles in the 12-tone style, but the result is emotionally satisfying and sounds much like his other music. Its fuguelike introduction immediately captivates, and even the slow movement, which more closely follows the rigid precepts of 12-tone theorists, comes off as an expressive, moving piece. The Buchberger Quartet's committed interpretations seal a high recommendation. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two of Ernst Toch's superb modern string quartets, May 18, 2011

By 

R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ernst Toch: String Quartets 11 & 13 (Audio CD)

Ernst Toch (1887-1964) created one of the finest string quartet cycles of the early 20th century, one that should be heard along with Bartok, Schoenberg and Shostakovich. The German CPO label recorded all eight of Toch's quartets between 1999 and 2001, and issued them on four discs between 2001 and 2003. They have never been combined into a box, as CPO did with Toch's Complete Symphonies (see my review). But I am going to review them as a cycle, and post to all four discs.

Two ensembles collaborated in these recordings, the Buchberger Quartett, which performed the 7th, 10th, 11th and 13th, and the Verdi Quartett, which performed the 6th, 8th, 9th and 12th. The performances and recordings, which were made at the Evangelische Kirche in Koln-Rondorf, are uniformly superb. All four discs feature stunning paintings by Christiane Grimm, and CPO's production is excellent.

Toch's quartets fall into two distinct categories -- the early traditional quartets, continuing the classical trajectory established by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, and the modern quartets, working in a new language influenced by the break with tonality pioneered by Debussy and Schoenberg.

The Traditional Quartets
String Quartet No. 6 op. 12 in A minor (1905) 37'44
String Quartet No. 7 op. 15 in G major (1907) 25'02
String Quartet No. 8 op. 18 in D flat major (1911) 36'49
String Quartet No. 9 op. 26 in C major (1920) 27'52

Toch's first five quartets were lost when Toch fled Germany ahead of the Nazis. The first two of the remaining eight, No. 6 and No. 7, are remarkably confident and accomplished. The Sixth was the first to be performed. The Seventh won the Mozart Prize in 1909, which set Toch on the path to become a composer. Max Reger was the judge. Fortunately for Toch the entries had to be anonymous and his work could compete on an equal footing with students of prestigious teachers and establishments. Toch was an autodidact who had taught himself by copying Mozart scores. Toch, from Vienna, won a four-year scholarship to study composition at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he studied with Iwan Knorr. He had already started medical school at his parents' behest, but left to pursue his own path.

Toch's early quartets are strong, clear, and elegant, continuing the First Vienna School's glorious tradition. While inheriting the Romantic harmonic palette, his quartets retain the proportions and propulsiveness of Haydn and Mozart, which would continue on into his later works as well. The masterpiece of these four is the Eighth, which I believe any traditional classical music listener would enjoy tremendously. In five movements, it is characterized by strong melody and drive. This was Toch's last quartet before the Great War, in which he served. Following the war, his first quartet, the Ninth, continues in the same vein, and in fact it was considered shocking that it was written in C major in the new post-war world. But the last movement of the Ninth moves beyond an identifiable key and inaugurates Toch's modern period, one in which he would emerge as a leading German composer eventually located in Berlin. That same final movement of the Ninth is also very energetic, and ties it together with the buoyant, dynamic Eighth on disc.

The Modern Quartets
String Quartet No. 10 op. 28 (1922) 30'25
String Quartet No. 11 op. 34 (1924) 27'51
String Quartet No. 12 op. 70 (1946) 27'56
String Quartet No. 13 op. 74 (1953) 25'27

The Tenth Quartet is Toch's first using the new atonal language. He limited himself to pitches based on his cousin Hans Bass's last name as a gift. Within these strictures he develops a wealth of varies themes of three-tone and four-tone motifs: "His selection of pitches and the structure of the intervals such as the tritone or second going along with them of course produce a certain dissonant coloration of the musical material." (from the liner notes by Constanze Stratz) Toch's sense of classical form persists and powerfully motivates this new material. The Eleventh Quartet was commissioned by Paul Hindemith for the Donaueschingen Chamber Music Festival of 1924. Utilizing both a free tonal idiom and sonata form, it was very popular right from the start -- I consider it to be the masterpiece of Toch's modern quartets. It is powerful, with a sometimes angry energy that seems characteristic of its time and place in Weimar Republic Germany. This work helped elevate Toch's stature such that during his four years in Berlin, 1929-1933, he was a leading composer the equal of Hindemith, Krenek and Weill.

A long interval separates the 10th and 11th Quartets from the 12th. Toch fled Germany in 1933, one of the first. He could see what was coming with the Nazi seizure of power. He went into exile and passed through London and New York before settling for several years in Los Angeles where he taught composition at USC and wrote for Hollywood. (What is not well-known is that he returned to Vienna in 1950 to write and spent most of the 1950s in Vienna and Switzerland before returning to the States.) It was only after the war, in 1946, that he wrote another quartet, a fine piece that continues in the same general stylistic vein as the Eleventh. Only in the 13th Quartet of 1953, commissioned by the Coleman Chamber Music Association of Pasadena, did Toch turn to the use of Schoenberg's 12-tone method. In motivic design and rhythm it is unmistakably Toch, and his use of tone rows was unorthodox. It seems that his use of the method, like Stravinsky, was completely idiosyncratic.

Perhaps at some point CPO will combine all four discs into one box. In the meantime here are my recommendations for where to start. I consider the 8th Quartet to be Toch's masterpiece of the traditional quartets. The disc with Quartets 8 & 9, then, is the first choice for those with a preference for the First Vienna School tradition. I consider the 11th Quartet to be Toch's masterpiece of his four modern quartets, and I would recommend this disc with Quartets 11 & 13 for those with a preference for Second Vienna School and modernist works. The other two discs combine one early traditional with one later modern quartet each. This is actually brilliant programming as it makes it possible to hear both the continuity and the change from one style to the other.

Ernst Toch's string quartets are superb, and should be heard!

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