Quattro
was founded by these four composers in 1996. It is, as it
were, a collective of like musical minds who share commonalities
of approach both of technique and of the composer’s relationship
to his audience. Of the four, disparate in terms of geographical
origin and age, Luboš Fišer has since died but the remaining trio
continue to produce challenging and important work. This disc,
in Arco Diva’s increasingly impressive series of discs, gives
us their quartets. Three were composed between 1986-87 but Bodorová’s
dates from as recently as 2000, a work commissioned from the composer
by Stanley Burnton and dedicated to his wife.
Fišer’s
Quartet is a compact one, lasting about eleven minutes. He uses,
as most of the Quattro composers do, oppositional blocks
to a significant extent. In his case the material is rather austere,
with a gruff viola and cello dominated opening section though
it does develop in modal lyricism as the single movement develops.
There is some very high lying violin writing, oscillating between
reserve and reflection but Fišer shapes the contrastive material
with absolute assurance, never allowing one to overbalance the
other. Increasing agitation is accompanied by the curtness of
his unison writing and by reminiscences of earlier material and
greater depth of utterance (increased bow pressure here from the
Jupiter Quartet) the music dissolves, erupts once more and then
quietens in won resolution. Not an immediately or superficially
likeable work, this nevertheless contains a weight of significance
and drama, whether internalised or outwardly projected. Its arc
from austerity to resolution is charted with immediacy, insight
and sure understanding of form.
Sylvie
Bodorová’s Quartet is her fourth, titled ‘Shofarot’, plural
for shofar. It’s in three movements all with Jewish superscriptions
and she has attempted to embed, infiltrate, what have you, the
instrument into the medium of her 2000 work, one of a number of
her recent works that take on Jewish themes. Embodying suitable
folk music and oppositional blocks, once more, Bodorová
proves more overtly expressive than Fišer in her aesthetic, one
to which I find myself increasingly drawn ever since I first heard
her music. She requires her instrumentalists to tap on the body
of the violin, and gradually the almost ghostly presence of the
shofar manifests itself in the opening movement – it seems to
me that she conjures it from history itself, vesting it with renewed
life, in the most conspicuously imaginative way imaginable. Now
revealed the shofar, transformed into the quartet medium, opens
the second movement encouraging increasingly open hearted folk
lyricism and melodic drive; this is effulgent and exciting, aerating
and alive. When Bodorová wants to drive hard, she can drive
– see her Guitar Quintet, a riot of animation, rhythmic dash and
tender heartedness. Busy and strongly rhythmic the final movement
has rather more jagged Jewish motifs now, but ones that play themselves
towards a triumphant resolution. I’m sure Stanley and Gwen Burnton
enjoyed the commission – bravo to them and to Bodorová
for this work and to Arco Diva for recording it.
Mácha’s
1987 Quartet is again in three movements. Complex, quite dramatic,
it contains elements of discordance within it but ones controlled,
refined and even punctured by colour, light and a sense of sure
momentum. The Larghetto for example begins abruptly but moves
seamlessly towards greater and greater simplicity of utterance.
There’s a more animated Janáček-like central panel that goes
to relative extremes of the upper and lower registers but is well
controlled and moulded. The final movement is bristly, glinting,
then more elegant and dramatic and finally quickly resolute.
Finally
there is the last of the Quattro composers, Zdeněk
Lukáš, born in 1928. In four numbered movements – he calls them
merely I, II, III and IV – he roots the work in modality. Windswept
fiddles over a pedal point open this intriguing quartet – before
the landscape turns dusky and a folk-influenced section opens
out into an effulgent melody with drone undercurrents. He does
the same in the second movement, though this time he cuts short
his instinct for gorgeous lyricism with self-aware alacrity. The
third movement is an andante type; concentratedly lyrical, rooted
in something much older perhaps than even the quartet medium,
it is advanced by skittering strings, keening cello, some scampering
contrastive material (again influenced by Janáček) and ending
in tranquillity and stillness. So to the stern finale – propulsive,
block-like – with its folk elements both exultant and yet well
integrated and that ends a most likeable, winning and effective
work.
But
that really applies to them all to greater or lesser degrees and
all have been immortalised on disc through the committed advocacy
of the excellent Jupiter Quartet. Fine notes by the way and excellent
recording quality lead me to a very strong recommendation.
Jonathan
Woolf
The
Arcodiva catalogue is now offered by MusicWeb
for
details 
Recorded Domovina Studios,
Prague, June and July 2001