Andrés Isasi - String Quartets, Vol. 1 (Isasi Quartet)

Information

Composer: Andrés Isasi

• String Quartet No. 0 in E Minor, Op. 83
• String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 27

Isasi Quartet

    Anna Bohigas, violin

    Sidonie Bougamont, violin

    Karsten Dobers, viola

    Matthias Weinmann, cello

Date: 2012

Label: Naxos

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Review

Spanish Basque composer Andrés Isasi made his first appearance on Naxos nearly a decade ago, so this sequel has been a long time coming. However, two further volumes towards this complete quartets series are promised and have indeed already been recorded by the Isasi Quartet. As the accompanying notes explain, there are three more full works extant, as well as a three-movement quartet that was likely unfinished, a few fragments and two stand-alone short pieces for the medium. With luck those discs will pack them all in and be more generously furnished than this one.

 

Written just over a decade apart, these two quartets are fairly similar in essence, if less so in practice. Elegance, wistfulness, folk influences, memorable melodies, minor keys and a lack of pretentiousness - these are prominent features of both. As the promotional blurb says, Grieg and Dvořák are two of the more obvious references, but so is someone like Weingartner in the more Germanically oriented A minor work. There is at any rate hardly a trace of Spanish or Basque nationalism in these works - lending Naxos's 'Spanish Classics' ticket a touch of irony. Despite their name, the Isasi Quartet are a primarily German ensemble, an attribute that fits rather well with Isasi's style. This is an impressive debut for Naxos by the Quartet: sympathetic and thoughtful, technically adept and cogent.

 

Sound quality is pretty good, clean and spacious with just a hint of perforation at the edges. One minor complaint is that the final milliseconds of each track have had natural reverberation quickly killed by human intervention. This happens surprisingly frequently even in modern recordings where extreme shortage of space is rarely an issue; only producers will know why they do such a pointless thing, but at least in this case the effect is minuscule.

 

Richard Whitehouse's descriptive notes are typically informative and well written. Roll on, volume two.  

— Byzantion

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Andrés Isasi (29 October 1890 – 6 April 1940) was a Spanish composer. Born in Bilbao, he moved to Berlin in 1909 to study with Karl Kämpf and Humperdinck, developing skill in large-scale musical forms, especially the symphonic poem. His works, which found more appreciation in Hungary and Germany than in Spain, shows strong Basque influences and solid academic training. Isasi composed two symphonies, several orchestral suites and symphonic poems, a Piano Concerto, chamber works including eight string quartets, and many songs. He died of a heart condition in 1940 at his home in Algorta.

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Founded in 2009, the Isasi Quartet focuses on composers who lived at stylistic crossroads, reflecting the ensemble's own multicultural identity. They first recorded the string quartets of Andrés Isasi, whose music blends German symphonism with Mediterranean lyricism. They later turned to the works of Henri Marteau, marked by French expressiveness and German structural clarity. The quartet's recordings, released on Naxos and CPO, have been featured on major European radio stations. The group performs widely at European festivals, earning particular acclaim for a 2015 concert at Bilbao's Philharmonic Society.

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