| Review by Beagle January 4, 2011 (8 of 8 found this review helpful)
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[this began as a reply to jdaniel in the Discussion thread, who asked...]
"Do they have the courage to be coarse when Janacek asks for it as well? My benchmark is Juilliard on Sony."
Yes indeedy! I believe you refer to that quality which the wife and I fondly refer to as 'edge', and horsehair-and-rosin edge is certainly present in satisfactory quantity where passion demands an emotional cadenza.
But a reassuring word to the faint-hearted who've had enough edge already today, and just want a dose of beauty in the evening: there is mostly 'tenderness' on this disc, both from Janácek's pen and the Mandelrings' bows. Although Tolstoy's novella, 'Krejcerova sonata', culminates in the narrator's confession to the brutal murder of his wife (falsely suspected of adultery), Janácek wasn't telling Tolstoy's story at all. He was just using its title to (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) suggest to a certain married woman named Kamila, that she OUGHT to consider the possibility of adultery with... guess-who. So bloody shrieks are neither called-for here, nor recorded on this disc. This first quartet always suffered on CD, with the highest notes of the violins reduced by 'aliasing' to fingers-on-chalkboard noise. Janácek was on his knees, pleading for a little you-know-what, not screaming.
Five years later at the age of 74, in his second quartet 'Listy duverne'* Janácek is still lusting after the impossible Kamila, but with more tenderness and less chest-beating. It would be unfair to call his wooing unsuccessful; it seems to achieve some sort of consummation in this remarkably lyrical music. Janácek originally wished that lyricism to be enhanced by viola d'amore** for the third voice; he was only dissuaded when his violist couldn't play the darn thing -- and Janácek out in the audience couldn't hear it. Eighty-some years later, Günter Teufel DOES play it and you CAN hear it on tracks 9-12 on this disc. The d'amore version has been reconstructed from Janácek's original score -- and it is notably different from the later viola version: surprisingly, the opening bars are played pizzicato by the other strings before the viola d'amore makes its aetherial entry. Ironically, it is the standard viola on track 5 which is almost inaudible -- a musicians' joke?
I don't have the Juilliard recording you mention, just a 1963 Janácek-Quartett, 1988 Hagen-Quartett and 1991 Lindsays CD, plus I have had the privilege of hearing this piece performed live (and well) twice in the last decade. This disc is easily the most satisfying recording thanks to SACD technology's string-friendly resolution -- but mostly because the Mandelrings have excelled themselves. It's safe to say that this is the Mandelring Quartet's most passionate performance on SACD (the Shostakovich cycle is a bit too pedantic for my taste).
I can't think of a reason to withhold a single half-star from either performance or sound, so...
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*'intimate letters', but originally 'love letters'.
**more of a play on words than a practical notion.
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