Antonin Dvorak
   Piano Quartets

* Piano Quartet in D, op. 23
* Piano Quartet in Eb, op. 87"

Ames Piano Quartet
Total time: 69:51
Dorian DOR-90125

Summary for the Busy Executive:  Dvorak and Ames - what could be terrible?

The Ames's CD of Richard Strauss's very Brahmsian, relatively early piano
quartet (Dorian DOR-90167) made me a fan.  The Ames not only displayed
technical finish, but also wrung every ounce of meaning from the work and
presented a very strong case for this little-known piece as an overlooked
masterwork.  Strauss isn't particularly known for his early chamber music,
and he wrote most of it on his way to "finding himself" as a composer.
Much of it consists of awkward cobblings of sonata form, but the piano
quartet, at least as the Ames plays it, shows a genius about to "break into
blossom."

I've followed the group's recordings ever since.  They have yet to
disappoint me.  They give you more than the "star turn":  the feeling of
deep study of the music and the concord of individual minds.  One never
gets the impression that the pianist drives the performance.  Their work
exemplifies my chamber-music ideal:  a conversation among true equals.
Familiar music sounds fresh when they play it - in the case of Dvorak,
very fresh indeed.

Dvorak wrote his piano quartets almost fifteen years apart.  I happen to
be nuts about his chamber music, so I'm not really the one to ask how high
they rank within his oeuvre.  The first shows the composer shaken out of
his early Wagnerian fever, with an opening idea strongly based on Czech
folk dance.  Besides the product of a great composer, it also exhibits an
affability suitable for friends gathering at someone's home to make music.
It's an eminently "sociable" work.  The song-like second movement, although
it lacks the strong profile of the first, nevertheless shows Dvorak in an
exploratory mood - being both ternary song and theme and variations.  The
finale also shows the composer's formal daring:  it's a rondo with the feel
of a scherzo.

The second quartet, an altogether grander affair, sounds less "social"
and more ambitious.  Dvorak never completely lost his fascination with
Wagner, particularly Wagner's harmony, and it certainly comes out here
in the many chromatic and enharmonic shifts.  However, we still recognize
Dvorak himself.  The movements are longer, the psychological background a
bit more complicated, and the joins aren't as obvious as in the earlier,
almost purely lyric work.  Brahms would have been proud to have written it.
From the opening of the first movement, we know that Dvorak has raised
the emotional and aesthetic stakes.  We hear a greater emphasis on
counterpoint, mostly as a way to vary the texture.  Dvorak varies it a lot,
resorting to very little melody-with-accompaniment.  Again, he satisfies
his taste for formal innovation.  This comes out most strongly in the third
movement, a Brahmsian allegretto with a surprise - a runaway passage that
takes the place of a trio.  Instead of a relaxation, however, it screws up
the tension, leaving the main allegretto to dissipate the excitement.  The
finale is a headlong rondo with affinities to sonata form.  The Ames plays
the bejabbers out of it.  This disc has become my favorite recording of
both quartets.

If I have any quibble, it's with the sound - a bit bass-y. However, I can
live with it.

Steve Schwartz