Joseph Marx: String Quartets
Lyric String Quartet
ASV Living Era 1073
5 stars
Masterpieces from a Virtually Unknown Master
Sometimes I worry, in my reviews, that my enthusiasms carry me away
and that I am much too effusive about the music I love, particularly
when it is music I've just discovered. Recently I've been exploring the
music of Joseph Marx (1882-1964) after being stunned at the beauty of
his recently recorded 'Nature Trilogy.' It turns out that ASV is issuing
a series of CDs containing Marx's music. I understand that the two piano
concerti and the 'Herbstsymphonie' ('Autumn Symphony'), as well as some
orchestral songs, are coming, and I can hardly wait. This CD of his
three string quartets, world premiere recordings issued in 1999, had
never come my way before, but I ordered it after I had fallen so hard
for the orchestral 'Nature Trilogy.'
It's hard to imagine three quartets by the same composer that differ so
much from each other. Further, if listened to in chronological order
(neglecting for the moment that the 1st was revised after the 2nd and
3rd had been written) the musical language of each succeeding quartet
becomes simpler than the one before it. [On the CD the quartets are in
this order: 1, 3, 2, making this reverse development a little less
obvious.]
The First Quartet, subtitled 'Quartetto Chromatico' (written in 1936-37
and revised in 1948) is in the highly chromatic, even convoluted style
one associates with Marx's fellow Austrians, Zemlinsky and Schreker.
The melodies tend to move by half-steps and there tends to be a good
deal of circling around tonal centers that then quickly are replaced by
neighboring tones and their associated harmonies. This gives the music
a restlessly knotty character, and it takes repeated listenings to retain
the melodies--not to speak of the harmonies--therein. Marx was an
indefatigable critic of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg,
Webern) and yet the harmonies used here are almost indistinguishable
from the hyperchromatism of Schoenberg's early 'Verklaerte Nacht' or
'Gurre-Lieder,' when he breeches the bounds of conventional Romantic
harmony. The third movement, in particular, in mood as well as style,
reminds one of the overripe style of the former piece of Schoenberg.
The Second Quartet, subtitled 'Quartetto in Modo Antico,' comprises four
movements in, in order, the Mixolydian, Dorian, Phrygian, and again
Mixolydian modes. Written in homage to the contrapuntal music of such
composers as Palestrina, Lassus and Tallis, there is the medieval feeling
associated with this harmonic language. Most striking is the slow
movement, in Phrygian mode [the scale one hears by playing the white
keys from E to e]; at times one is reminded some of the music of Ralph
Vaughan Williams, and then one realizes it is because we associate this
mode with his 'Variations on a Theme of Thomas Tallis,' in that mode and
also making use of contrapuntal string writing. The last movement is a
marvelous double fugue.
The Third Quartet, subtitled 'Quartetto in Modo Classico,' is written
in neoclassic form but, at least in part, in late Beethovenian harmonic
language. His is clearly an homage to the music of Classic Period, at
least in the forms used, but Marx cannot resist some added-note harmonies
and a smidgen of chromaticism, although extremely mild compared to the
First Quartet. The homage is absolutely genuine and heartfelt; there
is none of the irony implicit in, say, Prokofiev's 'Classical Symphony'
or Harold Shapero's 'Symphony for Classical Orchestra.' Perhaps, among
modern composers, the feeling comes closest to that magnificent
late-Beethovenian slow movement in George Rochberg's Third Quartet. The
Adagio is serenely beautiful; the first time I heard it I had to go back
immediately and hear it again two times. [Indeed, as I've been polishing
this review I've heard it again a couple of times.] The third movement,
Tempo di Menuetto, is a particularly gracious specimen that ventures
occasionally into more chromatic harmonies, but its Trio reverts to a
musette-like rustic drone, a charming touch, before it returns to the
main theme. The Finale is a masterfully crafted contrapuntal 6/8 romp
(with a 3/4 middle episode). The return of the A section incorporates
the opening section of the quartet's first movement, a subtle rounding-out
of the entire work.
Marx orchestrated both the 2nd and 3rd quartets for string orchestra and
I'd love to hear those versions. Perhaps ASV has plans to record them,
too. I hope so.
I honestly believe that the last two quartets deserve a place in the
standard quartet literature. I cannot imagine that string quartet players
would not be as amply rewarded playing them as their audiences would be.
The Lyric Quartet play the music as if they've known it for years,
although it's pretty likely they haven't.
Make no mistake, this rediscovery of the music of Joseph Marx is joyful
thing. As we hear more of his music--there's much more chamber music,
including three piano quartets, to be heard--he will assume his rightful
place in the pantheon of late Romantic composers.
Enthusiastically recommended.
TT=79:22
Scott Morrison
Review appears at amazon.com at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004GOX7/classicalnetA/
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