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Review by JJ June 11, 2011 (6 of 7 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics: |
A composition of an adolescent of sixteen, the Quartet for Piano, Violin, Alto and Cello by Gustav Mahler, dating from 1876, is a kind of “instrumental lied, a remembrance of Schubert, with a recurring theme that is quasi obsessive,” remarks Pierre-Emile Barbier in the liner notes. The Quartet in D major by Arnold Schoenerg from 1897 was not published until 1966. The String Trio Op.45, “a major score, if not the most essential, of the last period of the composer” states Alain Poirier, was composed in less than a month, during the year 1946. The latter also reports that “after a heart attack at the beginning of the month of August, Schoenberg found himself in a state of clinical death from which doctors saved him thanks to an injection in the heart… The music of Schoenberg, then seventy-two years old, was rarely so intense, reminiscent of his most powerful works from the expressionist period.” The Fantasy for Violin with piano accompaniment Op.47, the last chamber score by the Viennese composer, first performed in 1949 in Los Angeles, is the result of a commission by the violinst Adolf Koldofsky. Admirably inspired throughout, the playing by the Prazak Quartet is here at its best, where expression finds perfect balance with inimitable breadth. In stereo, this DSD remastering of recordings dating from 1994 to 2001 is a must not to be missed.
Jean-Jacques Millo
Translation Lawrence Schulman
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