CATALAN STRING QUARTETS
Josep SOLER String Quartet No 1
(1974)
Miquel ROGER String Quartet No 2
(1994)
Albert SARDA String Quartet
(1978)
Josep SOLER String Quartet No 5 (1994)
Kreutzer Quartet
rec 26-28 Aug 1998, St John's, Loughton
METIER MSV CD 92026
[79.15]
Crotchet
Metier
Introduced with a polemical essay by Peter Sheppard Skaerved, here
are string quartets from the Barcelona school of composers, headed by Josep
Soler (b. 1935), teacher of the other two composers represented. He reminds
us that beyond the power centres of great, rich cities there are 'extraordinary
and unique compositional schools ranging from the Baltic republics to Korea'
which we must take into account.
Peter Sheppard (as we used to know him when his brother Philip was still
the Kreutzers' cellist) celebrates the Catalan school's determination to
'engaged with the established canon'. Time warp, or fruitful quarrying of
a rich vein?
To simplify, all these works share a language which does not go far beyond
Schoenberg's and Berg's. The longest, and for many collectors it will prove
the most interesting, is Soler's 1995 26 minute meditation upon Beethoven's
Heiliger Dankgesang from Op. 132, diatonic with subtle distortions
and little surprises, eschewing the faster sections Beethoven himself introduced
for contrast in his long slow movement. Soler's earlier quartet of 1974 is
more overtly Schoenbergian in style, and neither of them has any truck with
the more extreme extended techniques of latter-day string writing. The quartet
of a few years later by Albert Sarda (b.1943) does not sound like
the work of a young man, nor really does the second quartet (1994) of Miquel
Roger (b. 1954) sound like music by a composer in his forties who had
allowed international developments in the '80s to lead him towards a personal
language.
But do not let me put you off too easily. All this music is wonderfully played
and recorded in a Loughton church with ideal acoustics for the purpose; the
Kreutzers leave you in no doubt of their commitment and conviction. Taken
one at a time, I enjoyed them all, and found the Beethoven gloss moving and
thought provoking - not as personal as Strauss's metamorphosis of the slow
movement of Beethoven's Seventh, but engaging nonetheless. Sheppard acknowledges
that the start of Sarda's quartet from the '70s 'could almost come from Soler's
1974 piece', and this does suggest that as a teacher Soler has put his own
stamp upon a generation of Catalan composers to an extent which cramped their
individual development. It contrasts markedly with the individuality and
liveliness of the music by numerous Spanish composers who had studied with
Luis de
Pablo of Madrid, many of them represented in Strasbourg's
Musica1999,
attended by Seen&Heard.
A few years ago I attended a few concerts in Barcelona, but found only one
of contemporary music. I gained an impression that musical education there
was distinctly backward and lacking in vitality. I brought back a box-full
of CDs from Catalunya, listening to which proved at the time discouraging
and dispiriting. Peter Sheppard Skaerved argues persuasively here that these
composers are 'exploring an exciting border zone', and that it is not
inappropriate that this 'music of denied expectation, rhythmic and colouristic
paradox - - ' should be 'bubbling out of the intellectual and artistic cauldron
that is contemporary Catalunya'.
For readers who would like to explore this music, which is rarely heard in
UK, the Association of Catalan Composers has a series of monographic CDs,
including Soler on CD-09-A-53, and Ars Harmonica has one devoted to Miquel
Roger (with another string quartet) on AH013.
Peter Grahame Woolf
See also review by Rob Barnett
