When I last wrote about the Pascal Quartet, a frequent contributor
to the message board of this site gently took me to task for
my unenthusiastic comments on their mono cycle of the Beethoven
Quartets. Well, Fate has a way of working its magic and here
I am, faced with the very same cycle I briefly alluded to in
that other review.
The quartets come in four 2 CD sets, all available separately
The Piano Quartets, Op.152, are found as substantial bonuses
in the last discs of the cycle; there the quartet was joined,
as so often on disc, by Artur Balsam.
I have a simple test for Pascal Quartet recordings. In every
instance where repertoire overlaps, I contrast their LP recordings
with those 78s of the quartet in which their violist, Léon
Pascal, had played before the war, the Calvet Quartet. The Calvet
left behind a major series of recordings in the 1936-39 period.
The Pascal formed in 1941, and on disc its most important years
were around 1950-55. It disbanded in 1973.
So we do have a chance to contrast Pascal’s recordings
with the Calvet and with his own later group. It should also
be possible to listen, compare and contrast those few 78s (as
opposed to LPs) that the Pascal Quartet made of Beethoven quartets,
but which I’ve never heard. That should be a most interesting
experiment. We do also have the opportunity, should we wish,
to compare the Pascal in Beethoven with recordings by other
notable French quartets of the time; the Bouillon, say, or the
Loewenguth. Beyond national borders, the Vegh Quartet made its
first somewhat objectified cycle in the same year as the Pascal,
and the following year the Hungarian Quartet recorded its fine
cycle, in Paris, interestingly.
After the elegance of Jules Boucherit and the sensuality of
Jacques Thibaud, French violin playing went through a gritty
patch in the 1930s and 40s. There was a rather caustic edge
to many, but not all, French players’ tones, and recording
studios in Paris were often cold and boxy, exacerbating the
problem.
I’m aware that this Beethoven cycle was very popular and
that Concert Hall did well out of it. I have seen figures like
a million sets sold, which sounds astronomically high to me,
but it could be right, I suppose, though I remain to be convinced
of that. So let me first apply the Calvet-Pascal test and admit
that in every case of overlap my preference is powerfully for
the Calvet, for their corporate tonal qualities and acutely
perceptive musicianship. Let’s briefly note the 1952 recorded
sound, which is often shrill and sometimes even distorted. The
tone of the Pascal was often brittle, sometimes crude, and unblended.
Its first violin, Jacques Dumont wasn’t always fully in
tune, and he could sometimes be cavalier over rhythm. Unisons
are sometimes, not always, strenuous and razory; in the Grosse
fuge it’s daemonically overpowering, indeed unpleasant.
Interpretatively, they take a raptly slow tempo in the slow
movement of Op.132, à la Busch or later the Quartetto
Italiano, but there are occasional intonational clashes and
a corporate nasality that imparts dryness to the performance.
They slow toward the end with a powerful pianissimo, which is
effective in its way, but lacks structural congruity. Pascal
plays very smearily in the following movement. In short, they
tend to make heavy weather of the late quartets. They make things
sound as technically difficult as they are. This stresses the
modernity of the music, for sure, but the coarse tone production
doesn’t help.
In their defence though - and I don’t want this review
to be a diatribe, because I do admire the group in other repertoire
- I wonder how well prepared they were for the project, and
how much rehearsal time went in. There is a certain cool aesthetic
to be admired, maybe, in Op.131 but I find that they are frustratingly
unable to blend tones; odd voicings are forever destabilising
corporate unisons. Their scrunchily congested playing of Op.59
No.2 is, sadly, representative, and the individual tones of
each player are rather bleached of real tone colour - though,
again, to what extent the recordings contributed is another
question. Against that, tempi are generally well chosen. Some
of the Op.18 set work better; and music where folkloric influences
are present brings out the best in them.
So, unfortunately, I still have negative feelings regarding
the Pascal Quartet’s Beethoven. I welcome the restorations,
though, faithfully preserving that chilly, unhelpful acoustic
and these in many ways pioneering but ultimately unconvincing
performances.
Jonathan Woolf
Work details
Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18/1 (1798-1800) [28:54]
Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18/2 (1798-1800) [22:10]
Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 18/3 (1798-1800) [22:04]
Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18/4 (1798-1800) [25:16]
Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18/5 (1798-1800) [28:27]
Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, Op. 18/6 (1798-1800) [25:03]
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR 245-46 [73:12 + 78:49]
Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59/1 ‘Razumovsky’
(1805/6) [37:13]
Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59/2 ‘Razumovsky’
(1805/6) [30:49]
Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59/3 ‘Razumovsky’
(1805/6) [29:01]
Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, Op. 74 ‘The Harp’
(pub. 1809) [30:50]
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR 255-56 [68:05 + 59:64]
Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 ‘Serioso’ (1810)
[21:01]
Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127 (1824-25) [36:31]
Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130 (1825-26) [38:31]
Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131 (1826) [38:51]
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR 267-68 [57:34 + 77:25]
Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 (1825) [46:48]
Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133 (1825-26) [15:49]
Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135 (1826) [22:42]
Quartet for piano and strings Op.152 (1785); No.1 [18:31]: No.2
[18:22]: No.3 [15:20]
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR 293-94 [62:40 + 75:40]
Quatuor Pascal, Arthur Balsam (piano) 