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Schubert, Schoeck: Rosamunde Quartet, Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Renaissance Hall, Dachau Palace, Dachau  11.10.2008 (JFL)

Schubert: Overture for String Quartet in c-minor D8a, String Quartet No.13 in a-minor D804 (”Rosamunde”)
Schoeck: Notturno for Bass-Baritone and String Quartet op.47


To someone who does not live or work there, the town of Dachau – just to the north of Munich – will never just evoke neutral associations. For most people, the name “Dauchau” is synonymous with “Concentration Camp”, much like “Auschwitz” is with “Extermination Camp”. For all the good and necessary virtues of remembrance, Dachau ought to be known for more than that. For one, it has a beautiful old town sitting above the countryside on a little hill, topped with a lovely little palace and garden from which one has a great view across and above Munich straight to the alps. I’ve lived nearby for many years and never knew until last spring, when I went there for a Bach-recital of Evgeni Koroliov.

Last week I went back, this time for the Rosamunde Quartet and Christian Gerhaher. Artists well going to Dachau (and beyond) for. The repertoire for baritone and string quartet is small – and the alluring (perhaps singular) exponent of that combination on offer was Othmar Schoeck’s Notturno op.47 which the Swiss post-romantic composer wrote between 1931 and 1933. If you don’t know Schoeck (1858-1947), one of the composers in the ignored cast of post WWI romantics, then you must get to know him. At least if Raff, Rheinberger, Zemlinsky, Reznicek, Schreker, Pfitzner, Marx, Wellesz, Krenek and the like (I’m casting my net deliberately wide) tickle your fancy.

But if you already know Schoeck from his dabblingly-delightful song-cycle “Elegy” (which makes him sound like a “pocket-Strauss”), you might be shocked to hear the Notturno – eight poems by Nikolaus Lenau and a short text by Gottfried Keller in five movements. Not only the setting – voice and quartet – is reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet (and the ‘vocal movement’ of Berg’s Lyric Suite), the music, too, nods (gently) to the harmonic, a-tonal language of the Second Viennese School.

The Notturno flirts with the outer harmonic reaches from a late-romantic vantage point. If it is played with the utmost precision, and if it is thought of in long lines – horizontally, not vertically – it can sound more like Richard Strauss (Metamorphosen) than Schoenberg. Long, thin strands of music wind through the score, emerging and submerging, in and out of audibility, but with Schoeck’s melodiousness-stretched-to-a-vanishing-point always felt. At least that’s Schoeck’s hyper-romanticism in theory.

To achieve this effect, Notturno would have to be played with sensational precision and with the musicians never counting beats but instead ‘feeling’ their way from phrase to phrase. The Rosamunde Quartet would be perfectly capable to do this under ideal conditions, assuming that their interpretive choice would lead them that way. Unfortunately, Saturday night at the Dachau palace, they were not at their peak. A little too strident, a little too imprecise, and not perfectly clean, the Notturno sounded more like Schoenberg’s Third Quartet than Tod & Verklärung, like a series of instances with all the notes in place instead of coming across as one very long, complexly intertwined piece of searing music. As if the quartet had rehearsed individually, but not together. (The latter as certainly not the case, seeing how they had just finished recording the work for ECM. The quartet simply wasn’t in good shape that night, hinting at the absolute gorgeousness only in the final Allegretto tranquillo.)

Christian Gerhaher, meanwhile, was in his usual top form. Neither the Rosamunde Quartet’s mild troubles, nor the audience from the boondocks which trampled toward the exit in small, but inconsiderate batches, threw him off. His unassuming voice, natural, serious, and diligent is perfectly suited to music like this and tackled the Lenau-poems with their tender darkness and somber grip. The Notturno, of which there is currently only one recording in the catalog (NCA, with Klaus Mertens and the Minguet Quartet – recordings on Denon, Accord, and Capitol are out of print), will undoubtedly be another feather in his – and ECM’s cap.

In the first half of the concert, the Rosamunde Quartet played their namesake piece – Schubert’s 13^th quartet in a-minor as well as the Schubert Overture for String Quartet in c-minor D8a. Both sounded like run-throughs of familiar material – and not up to the exalted standards that this group has set itself.

Jens F. Laurson


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