Toch has never lacked for dedicated advocates.
His discography has been recently enriched by CPO
999687-2, for example, which brings together the 11th
and 13th Quartets whilst Talent DOM32 has the 12th
and 15th. Laurel here gives us the seminal 9th
and 12th with the significant addition of the Op
37 Divertimenti. It was, in fact, ever thus with Toch. The discographical
position in the early 1950s saw major chamber works played by
elite performers, often on obscure labels so one could find
Toch himself as pianist with the Kaufman Quartet playing his
own Quintet or the dedicated Louis Kaufman again essaying Tochs
Op 25 Serenade on American Vox. Adventurous Toch-hunters doubtless
tracked down his Op 70 Quartet (recorded on this Laurel CD)
and played by the elite London String Quartet, fairly soon after
its premiere, on a desperately obscure and rare Alco set.
The trajectory of his life is well-enough known
Viennese, armed with rudimentary training he discovered the
Mozart Quartets, then moved to Frankfurt to embark on studies
proper. Rapid composition awards saw him to a post as teacher
in Mannheim and later still a prestigious move to Berlin. After
which, inevitably, came the traumatic move to California, composing
for Hollywood and teaching widely, a devastating creative block
and final rejuvenation beginning with that Op 70 Quartet. But
it was with another talismanic Quartet, No 9 that his real composing
life had begun. It was completed by Christmas 1919 after he
had served on the Austrian-Italian Front, a traumatic time during
which, apart from the Spitzweg Serenade, he had composed nothing.
The quartet begins in media res with an immediate and
compelling exchange of voices, not quite traditional in form,
with an insistent lack of repetition but with obvious structural
integrity. Only later does the first theme emerge and then on
the Second Violin and leads to imitative counterpoint and freely
expressive interplay between all four instruments. The Mendelssohn
Quartet are particularly good at precise entry points and at
elucidating the occasionally rather dissonant counterpoint;
praise too for their unanimity of bow weight, an expressive
quality well attuned to Tochs lyrical impulses. The Adagios
contrapuntal linearity is affecting. If this sounds unduly intellectual
then listen to the unfolding lyricism of this movement <sample
1> to understand Tochs astringent brand of freely developing
melody that reaches a peak of intensity three quarters of the
way through its ten-minute span. The resolute finale is clotted
in non-traditional forms, again employing Tochs favoured evolutionary
techniques to optimum advantage asymmetrical, contrastive, fully
integrated and finally triumphantly fused. This then was the
start of Tochs new compositional method and whilst its not an
easy listen its invariably fascinating harmonically, textually
and, not the least, rhythmically.
The Op 70 Quartet is the one that finally unlocked
his compositional silence and opened out into his final creative
phase. Written in 1946 it was first performed by the Paganini
Quartet, led by Scottish born Henri Temianka, in Los Angeles
in that year and, as noted above, received its first recording
shortly afterwards by the London Quartet. Its quite possible
that Toch knew the Londons cellist, the magnificent C. Warwick
Evans from the latters recent employment in the Hollywood recording
orchestras. The Op 70 is a remarkable work. It is intensely
chromatic and fluid undulatory, angular, with different voices
"leading" the instrumental texture. Chordal passages
are dramatic and constantly evolving narratively. Metrical irregularity
contrasts with the angularity of the cello part and its intense
keening in the adagio. Material is varied in this movement and
returns in the final section. The "Pensive Serenade"
is lighter, with its disconcerting air of a Weimar song; supple
rhythms, knocking-at-the-door pizzicatos from the cello, and
the almost vocal contributions of the middle voices <sample
2>. Toch had a real ear for colour as well as a sophisticated
rhythmic and melodic profile. The energetic finale full of informal
effects, resonant unison playing, thinning single lines, small
motivic cells is yet another example of his liking for creative
momentum, of fluidity of thought in action. In every way it
bears out his belief in the evolutionary and organic nature
of composition.
The first Divertimento Op 37/1 was premiered
by members of the Vienna Quartet. Brief but varied it was a
Schott prizewinner in 1926 and is a free duet, full of subtle
complexities and textual possibilities. The Second, a bigger
and more obviously virtuosic work, was arranged for cello by
Piatigorsky for performance with Heifetz in the 1960s. They
recorded it in 1965. Especially attractive is the affecting
string writing and the passing between the two voices of the
adagio. A rondo finale is full of pizzicatos, glissandos, double
trills and the whole gamut of virtuoso fireworks <sample
3>. The pensive little Dedication was written for the wedding
of Tochs daughter in 1948 a surprisingly withdrawn piece for
such an occasion.
The Mendelssohn Quartet perform truly admirably;
the acoustic is dry and rather over close but nothing can dim
the resources intellectual and instrumental of this fine group
and they bring to this music an integrity and a conviction that
makes this disc required listening.
Jonathan Woolf
The Mendelssohn Quartet