Customer Reviews

Franck, Chausson: String Quartets

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Based in Antwerp, the Spiegel Quartet is a Flemish ensemble which performs largely on 18th Century Belgian instruments. The Spiegel ensemble possesses a very fine string technique coupled not only with an unique insight into, but moreover with a palpable affinity towards Fin-de-Siècle Franco-Belgian chamber music.

MDG's recorded soundscape is superb in terms of depth gradation, dynamics, and natural tone--achieved without modification, manipulation, reverberation, nor filtration.

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The Spiegel opens the Franck Quartet with a very measured tempo whereby the first violin sweetly sings the malt-syrupy main theme over the ensemble's droning organ-like pedal point. The malty melody is then passed over to be repeated by the cello via reverse osmosis with the high-strings backing.
This opening statement of `le thème générateur' is presented with marvellous contrast to the ensuing minor-key episode which, nevertheless, tosses the main melody about in midair, keeping it in a Schillerian-Nietzschean fugato free-play ('Spieltrieb') of ideation.
The Spiegel's expansive breath of expression--(they take the Allegro as a virtual Andantino)--lends clarity to the complexity of this first movement, the duration of which is certainly the longest of available Franck Quartet recordings.

The skittish Scherzo features gossamer filigree in a mischievous, somewhat macabre, zigzagging melody relieved with a barcarolle Trio.

Throughout the Quartet, Franck modulates constantly thru a variety of keys distantly related to the tonic: this incessant chromaticism is of course highly characteristic of the late-Romantic ethos post-Wagner and leading unto Schönberg; indeed, it's not too much of a stretch to draw a parallel between Franck's D-major/minor Quartet (1890) and Schönberg's d-minor/major Quartet (1905) vis-à-vis elephantine dimensions, mosaic-chromatic colourations, and late-Romantic Decadent morbidity--the latter a primary topos of the Art Nouveau zeitgeist which fascinated Western aesthetic minds, c.1885-1915.

From its première the Larghetto has been singled-out for much praise amongst Franck aficionados: Proust and D'Indy alike immediately seized upon its artistic excellence, without hesitation comparing it favourably to the divine speculations of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms.
Those familiar with Franck's exquisite Violin Sonata may recognize faint melodic echoes from it within the Larghetto. The Larghetto is also notable for its intensely thematic string writing wherein not only are all four instruments speaking continuously, but each note crucially advances the discussion without any superfluous `filling in'. In this too Franck parallels Brahms and anticipates Schönberg.

It's not unusual to see the Larghetto recognized as the very heart of Franck's Quartet, ofttimes resulting in a view of the Finale as a somewhat excessively effusive concluding argument. But here the Spiegel achieves consummate artistic prowess in realizing the Finale as a kaleidoscopic recapitulation of afore sung themes in a magical mélange of Franck's cyclical technique--a formal style also employed by Brahms and Schönberg; and like Schönberg's First Quartet, Franck's Quartet will require repeated auditions to fully apprehend the enormity of its preternatural vision in its specific detail.

Spiegel (2005)
i. 16'55 ii. 05'32 iii. 10'06 iv. 13'49
Juilliard (1989)
i. 15'38 ii. 05'15 iii. 10'20 iv. 13'44
Kocian (2000)
i. 15'58 ii. 04'42 iii. 09'53 iv. 12'31
Gewandhaus (1983)
i. 15'30 ii. 05'08 iii. 10'05 iv. 13'13
Dante (2007)
i. 15'46 ii. 04'59 iii. 10'24 iv. 12'50
Prague (1978)
i. 15'55 ii. 04'55 iii. 10'56 iv. 13'19
Prague (1980)
i. 15'49 ii. 05'00 iii. 10'59 iv. 13'19

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Franck's String Quartet was enormously influential on subsequent French musicians viz., Lekeu; Debussy; Ravel; Magnard; Roussel; Vierne; D'Indy; Fauré; et Chausson, whose weighty Quartet is likewise given here a gorgeous interpretation by the Spiegel.

Chausson's c-minor/major Quartet (performing version completed by D'Indy, 1900), while wholly original, distinctly bears the stamp of many Franckian features--especially in the first movement.

Chausson's own individuality becomes evermore apparent in the ensuing mauve calm and yellow Belle Époque gaieté of movements two and three, respectively.

Spiegel (2005)
i. 12'35 ii. 09'08 iii. 08'20
Via Nova (1970)
i. 13'20 ii. 08'44 iii. 08'35
Ludwig (1996)
i. 12'03 ii. 10'22 iii. 08'43
Gaggini (1991)
i. 11'35 ii. 07'00 iii. 09'09
Chilingirian (1997)
i. 12'14 ii. 07'27 iii. 08'08
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