MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
String Quartet No. 1 in C major Op.37 (1917) [19:17]
Ludomir RÓŻYCKI (1884-1953)
String Quartet in D minor Op.49 (1915-16) [32:41]
Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
String Quartet No. 2 Op.56 (1927) [18:20]
Royal String Quartet
rec.  Potton Hall, Suffolk, 21-23 March 2008
HYPERION CDA67684 [70:20]

 

Experience Classicsonline

 

The two Szymanowski quartets are not easy to programme. When the Camerata Quartet did so on Dux 0366 they added nothing else and their disc lasts thirty-five minutes, making recommendation difficult. The Schoenberg Quartet on Chandos CHAN 10405 took a more sensible route and added both Janáček Quartets. Whereas the Goldner on Naxos 8554315 took the very much less expected option of adding Stravinsky – the Concertino, Three Pieces and Double Canon.

Whichever road you go down you need to combine secure technical address with a wide range of tone colours and an incisive understanding of Szymanowski’s heady idiom. Half measure in this repertoire is not really an option. 

The Royal String Quartet, all Polish, fortunately dig in with considerable panache and lucid strength. I think it’s fair to say that they tend to eclipse their rivals by virtue of the greater finesse and fluency they evoke. In the First Quartet for example they prove technically stronger than the Schoenberg and Goldner groups. They are also more veiled and transformative than the Camerata, whose faster tempi nevertheless offer a different and valid gloss on the music. If you prefer a blunt spoken, forceful Szymanowski the Camerata is certainly the foursome for you, recorded in a ‘cathedral’ style acoustic as well. But I think most would prefer the warmer Hyperion sound and the sense of coagulatory eroticism the Royals extract, the plangent lyricism of the central movement – and its final insistent cello line, and especially the Burlesca finale with its unison attaca and pizzicato vitality. 

In the Second Quartet the Royal’s sense of colour and texture pays rich dividends. Vitality is matched by a sure concern for the terrain of the music making, for its erotic ebbs and falls, and for its more barbaric enclosures. In this the extra time they expend, certainly in relation to the Camerata, is part of a pattern of music making that ensures that the folkloric elements are sinuously foregrounded. They’re especially successful in the finale of the Second, which is not taken too quickly – and certainly not too slowly – but allows both the torpid repose and the more galvanic eruptions of the music to generate a natural momentum. 

The Royal Quartet has chosen to include the 1915-16 Quartet of Ludomir Różycki (1884-1953). It’s couched in a very much more conventional and ‘approachable’ form. Crudely speaking, take Debussy and Suk and shake them together and that’s something like the result of this three movement, near thirty-three minute work; that’s to say it’s getting on for as long as both Szymanowski quartets put together. It’s fluidly constructed though, warmly textured and reaches an apex of languid impressionism in the central slow movement. I took most to the pizzicato-laced finale where the folk-saturated joie de vivre is unmistakeable. It’s a minor work, certainly, but despite the Parisian cloth worth an occasional hearing. 

This is now a strong front-runner in the current Szymanowski quartet discography. 

Jonathan Woolf 

see also Review by Rob Barnett

 

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.