MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

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

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

REVIEW Plain text for smartphones & printers

Availability

Carl NIELSEN (1865-1931)
Suite, Op.45 Den Luciferiske (1919-20) [22:46]
String Quartet No.2, Op.5 (1890) [26:14]
Vagn HOLMBOE (1909-1996)
String Quartet No.2, Op.47 (1949) [24:05]
Peter Sauermann (piano)
Musica Vitalis Quartet
rec. February 1997, Meistersingerhalle, Nuremberg (Suite) and May 1954, Copenhagen (Quartets)
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR1035 [73:06]

Forgotten Records moves somewhat off its beaten track in this disc by conjoining a 1954 Decca coupling of quartets by Vagn Holmboe and Nielsen with a 1997 recording of the latter’s Piano Suite, Op.45, the dramatic 1919-20 Luciferiske.

This suite, dedicated to Artur Schnabel – somewhat unexpectedly perhaps - was composed in the years immediately following cessation of hostilities and presents six movements of vivid characterisation. This work can take a variety of approaches and tempi and both Roscoe, on Hyperion, and Andsnes on Virgin demonstrate that a tensile approach works extremely well. Christina Bjørkøe account on CPO takes things to the other extreme – significant latitudinal phrasing not least in the central slow movement which she takes to breaking point. In the disc under review Peter Sauermann, born in 1935, and recorded by Bavarian Radio, sounds closer to the old John Ogdon performance in that respect. He plays with tonal warmth, rounded, even and balanced. He’s by no means a fire-and-ice Nielsen exponent, presenting the music with affecting sensitivity and well controlled logic.

Whether you find FR’s coupling logical – a question Spock would have asked Kirk – is a different matter. FR has a very brief booklet biography of the pianist in German and French, and a photograph – Sauermann is a pipe smoker – so he is as much the focus as the performances of the Musica Vitalis Quartet. Decca was much taken by the Holmboe-Nielsen coupling in the mid-50s, seeing a correspondence between the composers and promoting the question of lineage. In the vast Decca Sound box I briefly reviewed a similar coupling – of different quartets, obviously – played by the Koppel Quartet. Nielsen’s 1890 Op.5 Quartet is, in any case, a very easy-going work and the Musica Vitalis, with their primarius Villy Kaer phrasing attractively, linger long enough over the slow movement to draw out its beauties. True to their name, they enjoy the freewheeling folkloric elements of the humorous and lusty finale. Holmboe’s 1949 Quartet, Op.47, is played with the kind of attention to rhythmic detail and relative speed one doesn’t always find today when contemporary groups tend to explore every nook and cranny of Holmboe’s chamber music. The Musica Vitalis are notably fast, but not brusque. This is an architecturally perceptive account, strongly attentive to the various colours and sonorities demanded, from the religioso elements of the Andante, the folksy Presto and the plein air humour of the finale. Decca’s top notch mono sound completes the job.

If you didn’t invest in that big Decca box – or even if you did – you’ll find that this release complements it nicely, and modestly.

Jonathan Woolf


 

 



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