Béla Bartók; Ernő Dohnányi; Zoltán Kodály - Piano Quartets (Notos Quartett)

Information

Composer: Béla Bartók; Ernő Dohnányi; Zoltán Kodály

• Dohnányi - Piano Quartet No. 1 in F sharp minor
• Kodaly - Intermezzo for String Trio
• Bartók - Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 20

Notos Quartett

    Sindri Lederer, violin

    Andrea Burger, viola

    Philip Graham, cello

    Antonia Köster, piano

Date: 2017

Label: RCA

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Review

If this is indeed the first commercial recording of a substantial but lost chamber work by Bartók, one’s instinctive reaction is at first excitement, and then suspicion. Bartók’s hardly neglected, after all. Whatever the exact provenance of this Piano Quartet in C minor (and don’t look to RCA’s booklet-notes for any meaningful help on that score), if it hasn’t been recorded until now, you can’t help wondering why.

The answer might perhaps be that it’s juvenilia, composed in 1898 by a school-age composer who’d clearly been listening to more Brahms than was entirely healthy. And that’s what you get: a vigorous, robustly constructed four-movement work covered with Brahms’s fingerprints and even a couple of near-quotes.

Only in a few places will you find foretastes of Bartók’s mature musical imagination: the violin’s stratospheric entries in the Adagio, that same movement’s curious two-part structure and a fiery, episodic finale, which, for all their fervour and commitment, the Notos Quartet can’t quite make hang together. Apparently they played from the composer’s manuscript; and despite a recorded balance that’s sometimes a little fuzzy in the middle, there’s a real immediacy about their playing. Whatever its merits, it’s hard to imagine this piece being championed with more conviction.

Still, if you listened to this disc sight unseen, you’d probably guess that Dohnányi’s lyrical, bittersweet F sharp minor Piano Quartet – also written by a teenager – was the real harbinger of genius here. It’s more inventive, more shapely, with an unmistakable tang of paprika. The Notos Quartet play it with poetry and verve, and the piece itself is sufficiently rare for this recording to count as something of an achievement. An enjoyably dancelike account of Kodály’s Intermezzo for string trio serves (in the group’s word) as a ‘sorbet’ – and completes a well-played and enterprising debut disc from this excellent young German ensemble.

— Richard Bratby

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Béla Bartók (25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist who is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century. As an ethnomusicologist, his fieldwork with the composer Zoltán Kodály formed the basis for all later research in the field. Bartók employed folk themes and rhythms into his own music, achieving a style that was nationalistic and deeply personal. His notable works include the opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), 6 string quartets (1908–39), the Mikrokosmos piano set, Concerto for Orchestra (1943), and 3 piano concertos (1926, 1931 & 1945).

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Ernő Dohnányi (27 July 1877 – 9 February 1960) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor. Dohnányi studied in Budapest at the Royal Academy of Music. As a pianist he traveled widely and established a reputation as one of the best performers of his day. In 1948 he left Hungary as a political exile and became a U.S. citizen in 1955. Dohnányi's music, which was chiefly influenced by Johannes Brahms, was late Romantic and conservative in style, and after 1910 he occupied only a minor place among contemporary Hungarian composers. His works include three symphonies, a ballet, three operas, and chamber works.

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Zoltán Kodály (16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a prominent Hungarian composer. He was also an important figure who contributed heavily to music education in Hungary. As a composer, Kodály created an individual style that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. His notable works, many of which are widely performed, include Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), the opera Háry János (1926), Marosszék Dances (1930), Dances of Galánta (1933), Te Deum (1936), Concerto for Orchestra (1941), Symphony in C Major (1961), and chamber music.

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Since its foundation in 2007, the Notos Quartett has won six first prizes and various special awards in numerous international competitions. The ensemble has since established itself internationally, performing in renowned European concert halls and festivals, as well as travels regularly abroad to Russia, Australia, South Africa and Asia. In addition to the well-known masterpieces, the quartet is particularly committed to contemporary music and world premieres. The musicians also endeavor to track down lost and forgotten works of the piano quartet genre and to present them to a wider audience.

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