Ernst Toch

* String Quartet No. 7, op. 15
* Dedication
* String Quartet No. 10, op. 28

Buchberger Quartet
CPO 999 775-2  Total time: 59:55

Toch wrote about a dozen string quartets, five of which are lost.  He
began early, still a youngster.  By age 18, he had mastered the technique
of writing for strings and demonstrated the ability to write a long,
complex argument.  Although in his early twenties he had some encounter
with formal instruction, Toch taught himself almost completely.  Indeed,
as an adolescent, he had to compose in secret (his parents wanted a
doctor in the family).  His first two surviving string quartets (No. 7
is the second, if that's not confusing enough), written before formal
instruction, show a composer with very little to learn from a classroom
or a weekly lesson.

The Quartet No. 7 uses a neo-Brahmsian idiom with a sure grasp of form.
It's an early work, but not juvenilia, even though not in Toch's more
characteristic dissonant Modernism.  The first movement is a fairly
straightforward sonata-allegro.  The second movement, however, gives us
a foretaste of the mature, idiosyncratic composer.  It's a scherzo-with-trio
reversed, the scherzo passage occupying the center of the movement and
surrounded by a simpler andante.  The third movement reverts to the
normal scherzo-with-trio (or in this case, two trios).  The finale seems
an homage to Mozart.  Many of the rhythmic and melodic patterns seem to
come from Mozart's chamber works (particularly the g-minor string quintet).
This shouldn't surprise those of you already familiar with Toch, since
he considered Mozart his principal "teacher." It's certainly the most
complex movement, formally speaking.  Throughout, the string quartet is
not merely expert, it invents new textures and sounds great, besides.
Toch's European reputation rested mainly on his chamber music, particularly
on his quartets.  Ensembles kept asking him for new work, and one can
easily see why.

Toch wrote the tenth quartet in 1921 (it premiered in 1923).  The First
World War had intervened, and Toch had served.  The Brahms echoes are
still present, though far reduced.  Toch begins to walk a Modern path.
To some extent, it's a "trick" quartet.  All the themes derive from the
name "BASS" - Hans (or John) Bass, Toch's cousin, who had bought Toch
the gift of a complete Mozart edition.  At one level, the quartet is a
composer's thank-you card.  Since note-names are letters in English and
in German, composers can spell out words.  Bach, of course, spelled out
BACH (in the German system, Bb-A-C-B-natural) in several compositions.
Toch, in a characteristic turn of ingenuity, creates two basic themes
on "BASS": Bb-A-Eb-Eb (S = Es in the German system = Eb) and Bb-Ab-Eb
(Ab = As).  In other words, he works with a four-note cell and a three-note
cell for an entire quartet.  I have no score to check, but it doesn't
sound as if absolutely every important motive relates to those notes.
Instead, what seems to happen is that the general thematic shapes are
present, engender other ideas, or lurk in the background, reveal themselves,
and lurk again.  In the slow movement, for example, the three-note version
appears as a "head" or "tail" to more prominent ideas.  The relaxed
geniality of the seventh quartet, however, has receded.  Whatever humor
may reside in the work has taken on an edge.  The first movement, another
sonata, grinds and grates.  The slow movement begins with a deeply sad
chorale, filled with regret.  The most consonant, harmonically-conventional
movement of the four, it doesn't paint a simulacrum of grief.  The emotion
seems to come from actual experience.  It will genuinely break your heart
- furthermore, several times throughout its course.  The most interesting
movement for me (also the shortest) is the third, a scherzo marked
"Katzenhaft schleichend ..." (slinking around like a cat).  The strings
slide about a harmonic no-man's land to a slippery little waltz.  It
insinuates itself like a cat around your legs.  The general feeling
reminds me a bit of the slow movement of Hindemith's third string quartet
(written later, though premiered earlier than the Toch).  Toch ends with
a sonata, which continually seems to promise some sort of psychic
resolution, but such moments last only briefly.  Indeed, when they occur,
they seem almost satiric or teasing.  Indeed, the idea that brings on
such moments occurs at the end in a swarm of Angst-laden runs from which
a final major chord is ripped.  No affirmation here.

Dedication comes from 1948 -- a piece d'occasion --  written for the
marriage of Toch's daughter to Irving Wechsler.  Their son, Lawrence,
author of a pioneering article on Toch introduced many of us to this
composer.  It's four lovely minutes of Toch reverting to his Late Romantic
idiom.  At times, it even sounds a bit like the Schoenberg of Verklaerte
Nacht, although far more cleanly written and thematically focused.

The Buchberger Quartet handles these works with grace.  They do, however,
miss the warmth of the seventh quartet.  It's a bit as if they preferred
to lecture rather than have a conversation (more Viennese, less German,
please).  Nevertheless, intonation, balance, and architectural smarts
they have in spades, and they get completely the restiveness of the
Quartet No. 10.

Steve Schwartz