Franco Alfano - Complete String Quartets (Elmira Darvarova; etc.)

Information

Composer: Franco Alfano

• String Quartet No. 1 in D Major (1924 Version)
• String Quartet No. 2 in C Major 'In Tre Tempi Collegati'
• String Quartet No. 3 in G Minor

Elmira Darvarova, violin

Mary Ann Mumm, violin

Craig Mumm, viola

Samuel Magill, cello

Date: 2023

Label: Naxos

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Review

Alfano’s First begins like a quartet using jump-leads to start a Janáček piece (though it dates from 1915, eight years before The Kreutzer Sonata). It sputters into life, lurches off, judders to a halt and goes off again. Only with the second subject, three minutes in, is some measure of continuity established. It is almost the last music you’d expect from a Neapolitan composer known first and foremost for completing Puccini’s Turandot. Only later, in the cool thrum of the slow middle movement, does the influence of Ravel’s essay in the genre become pervasive.

On an initial encounter – these are all first recordings, and all the more valuable for that – the First’s finale could do with more of Ravel’s rigorous approach to form. Cellist Samuel Magill contributes a useful booklet essay on the shape of the individual works, though it would be good to know more about how Alfano became the composer he did. Magill hears an element of organum in the slow unfolding of the Second’s opening movement. Maybe so, though the harmony wanders off course, and the tuning likewise, before the muted, rustic dance of the middle movement.

Over a decade ago, these musicians made two albums of Alfano’s chamber music on Naxos, which may be why they perform here under their own names. Regardless, they play as a strong, single-minded collective and bring a persuasively raw, sinewy exhilaration to the Bartókian finale of the Second. Alfano was 70 when he wrote the Third in 1945, and there is a palpable air of mature retrospection that brings his verismo operatic idiom to bear on the inner drama of the quartet tradition. Anyone with even a passing interest in the byways of quartet literature should find the Third in particular, but also the album as a journey, rewards their attention.

— Peter Quantrill

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Franco Alfano (8 March 1875 – 27 October 1954) was an Italian composer. He studied piano, harmony and composition in Naples and Leipzig, later directing major Italian conservatories in Bologna, Turin and Pesaro. Alfano gained early operatic success with Risurrezione (1904) and drew on his own work La leggenda di Sakùntala in completing Puccini's Turandot. His other compositions include operas such as Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as chamber and vocal music, some inspired by Tagore. Though long overshadowed by his work on Turandot, his original music is now being reassessed and appreciated.

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Elmira Darvarova studied with renowned teachers including Yfrah Neaman, Josef Gingold and Henryk Szeryng. She has performed as a soloist and recitalist on five continents, appearing with major orchestras and at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Musikverein and Suntory Hall. In addition to classical repertoire, she explores diverse genres including tango, jazz, blues, folk, world music and Indian Ragas. Darvarova has collaborated with renowned musicians like James Levine, Janos Starker, and Amjad Ali Khan. An award-winning artist, Darvarova can be heard on numerous critical acclaimed CDs.

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