Erich Wolfgang Korngold - String Quartets (Doric String Quartet)

Information

Composer: Erich Wolfgang Korngold

• String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 16
• String Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 26
• String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 34

Doric String Quartet

    Alex Redington, violin

    Jonathan Stone, violin

    Simon Tandree, viola

    John Myerscough, cello

Date: 2010

Label: Chandos

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Review

Korngold’s three quartets straddle his Hollywood film career. The earlier two come from the 1920s and ’30s, the third from 1945. Hearing them afresh, there is not only a seductive Viennese charm as might be expected, but also a keenly felt depth of expression and grasp of structure that makes them such satisfying companions to the quartets of Haydn and Schubert,as programmed by the Doric Quartet inlive performance.

This is the quartet’s first release for Chandos and it couldn’t be more auspicious. Their playing is alive to every nuance and turn of phrase in these absorbing and endearing valentines to the city of the composer’s birth. The first movement of the First Quartet (1920-23) is a highly strung affair that continues in the same vein into an Adagio which more than once evokes the spirit of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. The sunny Intermezzo, delicately scored with string writing of extraordinary translucency, precedes a finale that heralds the world of Korngold’s Hollywood film scores. A melody built on rising fourths leads to a swaggering march akin to the Victory March from The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. André Previn has written that the musical language of Korngold’s “serious” music wasn’t really so different to the film music, simply bigger and broader in scope. The Second Quartet brings the glamorous world of pre-1914 Vienna more sharply into focus, evoking Richard Strauss in the first movement and Johann Strauss in the take-your-partner waltz finale with variations.

In the first movement of Quartet No 3 we’re once again in a leaner and more linear world of string writing, going on into a spooky Scherzo with a languorous Trio taken from the film Between Two Worlds, apparently Korngold’s favourite film score. The eloquent slow movement employs the love theme from the film The Sea Wolf, a plain idea based on his signature rising-fourth motif. Originally written for harmonica, it adapts naturally to four strings. Nowhere in these three quartets is the composer’s sensitivity to texture and melody more touchingly conveyed than in the beautiful slow movement. A snappy unison theme announces the finale which includes a bracing nautical idea as a second subject. This is a most desirable issue of music with which the Doric foursome are totally at ease.

— Adrian Edwards

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was an Austrian-born composer and child prodigy, hailed as a genius in early 20th-century classical music. He gained early fame for his operas, particularly Die tote Stadt (1920), before fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria in the 1930s. In Hollywood, Korngold became a pioneer of film music, composing lush, romantic scores for films like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which won him an Academy Award. He wrote scores for 16 Hollywood films in all, and is considered one of the founders of film music, along with Max Steiner and Alfred Newman.

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The Doric String Quartet, founded in 1998, is a UK-based chamber ensemble. Its membership has evolved, with Hélène Clément and later Emma Wernig serving as violist, Ying Xue joining as second violinist in 2018, and Maia Cabeza becoming first violinist in 2024. The quartet has been Teaching Quartet in Association at the Royal Academy of Music since 2015 and Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival since 2018. With over 20 recordings for Chandos Records, it performs regularly at major venues including Wigmore Hall and Vienna Konzerthaus, and collaborates widely with leading artists.

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