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This is a bold conjugation. It is fairly common to find the two Szymanowski quartets yoked but together they run to well short of 40 minutes. Here they keep company with Rozycki's quartet.
 
The First Szymanowski is piercing, lyrical, pressed forward and expressionist in redolence - perhaps recalling Zemlinsky and Weigl. The Second Quartet is delicate yet of steely precision - alive with precisely drawn swooning voices and Bartókian shudders and screeches. It recalls the Bax Third Quartet of the same year. There is a violent Vivace Scherzando which would be the ideal track to sample such is the Royal’s boisterous gutsy playing and spatial dialogue. The difference in style between the two Szymanowski quartets is paralleled by the contrast between the two Violin Concertos - divided from each other by the Soviet Revolution and a Great World War. The folk voices in the two quartets have the scudding energy and allure of the parallel episodes in the ballet Harnasie.
 
The Rozycki Quartet is an example of caramel-deep late-romanticism. Fundamentally old-fashioned even in 1915, it embraces an idiom which is fragrant with a language associated with Korngold, Suk and Myaskovsky. It is wonderfully skilled and healthily grounded with a superbly rolled skirl in the finale. This is very enjoyable indeed.  It should appeal if you already enjoy the Smetana First Quartet with the idiom lightly updated.
 
Decent notes by Philip Weller although I really could have done with more biographical context around these works and especially in the case of Rozycki.
 
Red-blooded performances and recording from the Royal and from Hyperion.
 
Rob Barnett
 

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