BLOCH Music for string quartet
Swiss-German alliance in Bloch’s quartet miniatures
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ernest Bloch
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Sony Classical
Magazine Review Date: 02/2012
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 62
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 88697 95024-2
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Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Prelude (Recueillement) |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
Paysages (Landscapes) |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
Jewish Life No 1 |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea Jens-Peter Maintz, Cello |
(2) Pieces |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
Night |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
In the Mountains (Haute Savoie), (2) Sketches |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
String Quartet (1896) |
Ernest Bloch, Composer
Ernest Bloch, Composer Galatea |
Author: Ivan March
Of the shorter, evocative miniatures, the opening Prelude (Recueillement) is unexpectedly brief (barely four minutes) but poignant, a slow fugal farewell to the composer’s directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music. The three Landscapes are even shorter and similarly concentrated, the first two lyrical, the last, shortest of all, bringing pounding percussive effects. In the warmly passionate Prayer (arranged by the quartet’s cellist, Julian Kilchenmann) is the Bloch we recognise from Schelomo. The Two Pieces, written much later in 1938 but based on earlier material, are contrasted, the first gracious and relatively calm, the second all but a scherzando. Night is a hauntingly characteristic nocturnal, full of melancholy. The two sketches In the Mountains are quite contrasted. The first is a yearning impression of dusk falling over the Haute Savoie, where the composer regularly visited in his youth, and the second is a lively rustic dance, altogether more positive and life-assertive.
The performances by the Galatea Quartet, very well recorded, are highly sympathic and beautifully played, catching the composer’s deeply felt response to his surroundings.
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