That March review was by Rob Barnett.  Here is a review by Peter Grahame
Woolf that will appear in the April Reviews

No revolutionary, this Marx (1882-1964), but a renowned pedagogue and
militant arch-conservative, who established an 'alternative' Salzburg
Festival in 1923 to challenge the ISCM, when it was dominated by Schoenberg
and his disciples.  With Zemlinsky, Gal and others, Korngold and Marx
organised a festival to represent the best non-serial music of the time.
Displaying technical mastery, these quartets are seemingly didactic,
demonstrating Joseph Marx's skill in three different idioms.  The quartetto
chromatico was begun in 1936 and revised 1948.  It shows that he can rival
the early Schoenberg's intense chromaticism, with continual key shifts and
melodies moving in semitones.  Next, he produced his Quartetto in modo
antico, looking back to Palestrina and Lasso, with modal harmony aiming to
'recreate the sound forms of times past'.  The movements are respectively
in Mixolydian, Dorian, Phrygian modes, the first returning in the
impressive double fugue of the finale, which ends with calm restored.  This
has audible connections with the modal music of many English composers,
such as the Vaughan Williams of the Tallis Fantasia and early Tippett also
comes to mind.

The third of Marx's quartets is Quartetto in modo classico, in the spirit
of Haydn but no mere pastiche, its idiom decidedly late-romantic, as is
most of Marx's extensive oeuvre.  It is good to be reminded that the
anti-modernist New Viennese school had its precursor some eighty years ago,
attempting to curb a tendency which had to run it course, and has now been
overtaken in its turn.  My only reservation is the effect of the titles;
I should have been happier with Opus Nos, which would not pre-determine
listening attitudes.  The music is far more than the didactic exercises
suggested, and I thought that the antico quartet, unexpectedly my own
favourite, could easily become a welcome item in quartet recitals; 'modern'
music a mere 60 years old, which would not frighten anyone.  The three
would make a fine recital programme, but I fear no-one would come!  Full
marks to the Lyric Quartet for exploring and exploiting such a worthwhile
niche.  Marx's quartets make for good listening and merit serious
attention by other quartets too.  They are well played and recorded
here, with fascinating notes to put in their proper place the later
anti-Schoenbergians, Zemlinsky, Korngold, Goldschmidt, and many others
worth dusting off library shelves and playing to new listeners in a new
Millennium.  No unquestionable masterpieces, though, so I settle for four
stars.  Reviewer Peter Grahame Woolf

Len Mullenger
Webmaster for Music on the Web (UK)
www.musicweb.uk.net