Pfitzner contributed significantly to the field of chamber music. His
works in this medium are:-
Cello Sonata in f sharp minor (1890)
Piano Trio (1896)
Piano Quintet (1908)
Violin Sonata (1918)
Sextet (1945)
Only in the field of the string quartet was there more than one example of
each grouping. He wrote four quartets and all are featured on athispair of
well documented (French, English, German) CPO discs.
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String Quartet No. 2 Op 13 in
D major (1902)
String Quartet No. 4 Op 50 in C minor (1942)
Franz Schubert Quartett
rec 2-5 Feb 1993
co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk
CPO 999 072-2 [54.01] |
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Crotchet
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Pfitzner's complete orchestral music is resplendently done on
five CPO discs. The company have now turned to
his chamber music and with pleasantly implacable resolve seem intent on recording
the complete output. The first stage is the string quartets. These two each
last just under half an hour.
Pfitzner is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Reger. In fact there
is about as much in common between those two as between another pair often
bracketed together (Bruckner and Mahler) in the dark ages of the 1950s and
1960s. Pfitzner is not a man to write wild and woolly mammoths of works and
Max's penchant (to which he sometimes capitulates with joyous indulgence)
for prolixity is not something you can associate with Pfitzner.
The two quartets stare at each other across a void of forty years: one written
12 years before the Great War and the other written in old age during World
War II. Both are attractive works and the style has hardly changed over the
years. The Bachian purity and Dvorák-like romance of the first movement
of Op. 13 puts not a foot wrong. There is a delightful second movement with
a refrain recalling Three Blind Mice, a third movement of bruising
emotionalism and a finale in the spirit of some cheery German drinking song
- brimming steins and all! The Op. 54 work is hooded and reserved in the
first movement and in the langsam (III) assumes the Mozartian mantle
of wit and dignified beauty. The finale (Allegro) is alive with a
fantasy familiar from Elgar's Introduction and Allegro.
CPO's sensitivity to artistic needs is usually high. This is noted in a hundred
and one little features: for example the good long gap between the end of
the 1902 work and the start of the 1942 work. Documentation excellent.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
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String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
(1886)
String Quartet No. 3 Op 36 in C sharp minor (1925)
Franz Schubert Quartett
rec 1-3 Feb 1993
co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk
CPO 999 526-2 [73.17] |
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The D minor quartet is the work of a teenager. The first movement's debt
is to Mozart and to the muscular Brahms of the first piano concerto. This
is followed by a grand dance - halting, hesitant but grand nonetheless, a
Bachian andante and a chuggingly affable Allegro finale.
The Op. 36 work is, in contrast, a work of Pfitzner's ripe maturity. The
work is close to 40 minutes long and its epic scope translated into an
orchestration as a symphony. Under this mantle it is probably better known.
It is a work of great strength. The initial Ziemlich ruhig pitches
and cants around the aural scenery in unbridled abandon: like sparks and
brands flying out of one of Bernard van Dieren's string quartets (now there
is a project for CPO) or the accompaniment to Warlock's song cycle The
Curlew. The Sehr schnell is fast, ghostly - a leering nightride.
The langsam third movement is a rocking Zemlinskian dream. The finale
is passionate, bursting the fetters of the quartet medium and seeming to
be more in the nature of a violin concerto complete with gypsy fire and searing
cinders.
I look forward to later instalments of Pfitzner's accessible chamber music.
Certainly recommended for the explorer - as also is the other CPO disc.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
|
Franz
Schubert Quartett
