Volume 17 Issue 8 - May 2012

tour of the USA and was now back in thefamiliar landscape of his beloved Bohemia.Working from his country home in Vysoká,he completed the quartet in just four weeks,putting the final touches on it on ChristmasDay. The piece exudes contentment, and itsbuoyant spirit is clearly evident in this newAnalekta recording featuring the CeciliaString Quartet.Named for the patron saint of music,the Toronto-based ensemble formed whenall four members were studying at theUniversity of Toronto. The quartet wonthe Felix Galimir Chamber Music Awardin 2005, went on to win first prize at theBanff International Quartet Competitionin 2010 and has since made appearancesboth in Europe and North America. Thisis the Cecilia’s first recording in a series offour to be recorded for Analekta, and it’s agem! From the quartet’s sprightly openingmeasures, the ensemble achieves a wonderfulsense of balance throughout the finelyinterwoven counterpoint. The intonation isclear and precise, and there is none of themuddiness which can sometimes occur instring performance. The languorous linesof the Adagio result in a wonderful sound,while the Finale is treated with an arrestingenergy, the changes in mood and tempoadeptly handled.An added bonus on this disc is the setof Cypresses Op.152. These expressions ofyoung love initially began as songs, but werelater adapted for string quartet. Together,they contain a bevy of contrasting moods,from yearning and tender to anguished anddefiant. The Cecilia Quartet does them alljustice, playing with an assured elegance, asit does the set of Two Waltzes Op.54 whichrounds out this most satisfying recording.—Richard HaskellConcert Note: This year’s Felix GalimirPrize will be presented to Trio Danzka in aconcert at Walter Hall on Sunday May 13 at3pm. Trio Danzka will perform Beethoven’s“Ghost” trio and Schumann’s Piano Trio No.1in D Minor.FEELING LUCKY?THREE WAYS TO WINCDs, tickets and othermusical prizes courtesy ofThe WholeNote1. Join our mailing list byregistering atwww.thewholenote.com2. Like us on Facebook3. Follow us on TwitterStrings AttachedToronto’s Windermere String Quartetwas founded in 2005, but has onlyjust released its first CD, The GoldenAge of String Quartets, on Alison Melville’sPipistrelle label (pip0112). The ensemblebills itself as the Windermere String Quartet“on period instruments” and the players,violinists Rona Goldensher and ElizabethLoewen Andrews, violistAnthony Rapoport and cellistLaura Jones, all have extensiveexperience with leading periodinstrument ensembles.Their debut CD highlights theperiod at the heart of their repertoire,with Mozart’s Quartet inC Major K465, the “Dissonance,”Haydn’s Quartet in E-Flat MajorOp.33 No.2, “The Joke,” andBeethoven’s Quartet in CMinor Op.18 No.4.As you would expect, there isno overtly “romantic” approachto the playing here, but these areterrific interpretations, with fineensemble playing, great dynamicsand expression, excellent choicesof tempo, sensitivity in theMozart, a fine sense of humourin the Haydn and real passion inthe Beethoven.The recordings were made almosttwo years ago in St. Anne’sAnglican Church in Toronto,with the expert team of NorbertKraft and Bonnie Silver, and the ambience isspacious and reverberant.Period performances often display a sparsityof vibrato and a softness of attack thatcan make them sound somewhat flat and lifeless,and lacking in fullness and warmth — orat least, warmth the way we have come toexpect it. There is never any danger of thathere, though. These are period performancesthat blend life, spirit and soul with aperfectly-judged sensitivity for contemporarystyle and practice. It’s the perfect marriage,and hopefully we won’t have to wait toolong for further offspring to accompany thisexemplary debut disc.Two interesting CDs of early Italian stringquartets arrived recently, neither of whichturned out to be quite what I expected.TErrY ROBBINSLuigi Boccherini (1743–1805) is mostlyremembered for his famous Minuet, butalong with Haydn he was in at the birthof the string quartet form, writing closeto 100 quartets, almost always in groups ofsix, starting with his Op.2 in 1761. The sixString Quartets Op.8 from 1768 are featuredon a budget re-issue CD from the ItalianDYNAMic label in excellent 1994performances by the Quartettod’archi di Venezia (DM8027).Despite their brevity — thelongest quartet is only 14 minuteslong — and their limitedemotional range, this is in noway merely functional musicbut true part-writing that is bothwell-balanced and idiomatic.Niccolo Paganini wrote onlythree works in the quartetgenre, but despite their beingwritten some 50 years afterBoccherini’s there is virtuallyno part-writing; it’s almostall first violin solo withstring accompaniment. Perhapssurprisingly, this is not becausePaganini wanted to displayhis virtuosic technique: theyare, in fact, very much of theirtime. Paganini was a closefriend of Rossini, and themusic here — like Rossini’s — isessentially melodic, withno attempt at dialogue. TheString Quartets Nos.1–3 are charming andcompetent, but with no great depth, andreceive effortless performances by the AmatiEnsemble String Quartet on Brilliant Classics(94287). These quartets live or die on theskills of the first violin, and happily, Dutchviolinist Gil Sharon is more than up tothe task.Strings Attached continues at www.thewholenote.com with Robert Gibbsand Gusztav Fenyo’s Complete music forViolin and Piano by Eugene Goossens, TaiMurray’s recording of Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas,Volume II of the Pacifica Quartet’s SovietExperience and Volume III of Sarasate’sComplete Music for Violin and Piano withTianwa Yang and Markus Hadulla.thewholenote.comMay 1 – June 7, 2012thewholenote.com 65