J Wieniawski • Bruckner
Glière String Quartet
DUX DUX1984 74:43 mins
The first slot in string quartet recitals often goes to Haydn, which is all to the good – players and audience need to know every quartet written by the so-called ‘father of the string quartet’. But if ensembles are looking for a more unusual alternative, both the relative rarities featured on this recording will do.
There’s just enough in the A minor Quartet by Józef Wieniawski, younger brother of the better-known violinist-composer Henryk, to hold the interest, even if the ideas aren’t for the most part memorable. Jogging us out of any complacency are the first movement’s development and its charmingly wayward closing bars, the semi-turbulence in the middle of the Andante cantabile and above all the Scherzo, which would be a worthy encore for any quartet.
Bruckner’s relatively early Quartet in C minor already shows an individual voice, even if it’s not the one we know from the symphonies. There is genuine melancholy and sweetness in the opening movement, the Scherzo is rustic-haydnesque and homages to Haydn pop up in the finale, too; this is no lazy Romantic specimen.
The Glière Quartet is a healthy European mix of Polish, Austrian, German, Hungarian and Ukrainian (first violin Wladislaw Winokurow has made sure his team regularly programmes late 19th and early 20th-century Ukrainian works). It makes a special distinction between the robustness of the Wieniawski and the more introspective aspects of the Bruckner, and both are captured in forward but not unsophisticated sound. Three cheers to the Polish city of Lublin, Wieniawski’s home town, for supporting the project. David Nice PERFORMANCE
RECORDING