String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2/Lan

This was my first experience with Szymanowski's music. I have only recently begun listening to string quartets and, starting with the amazing Beethoven works, have been moving through other fine string quartet composers like Haydn, Bartok, Janacek, Shostakovich, Dvorak, Tippett, Bridge, Britten, Gorecki, Frankel, etc -- but, even among that brilliant company, Szymanowski's 2 string quartets on this CD stand as some of the most penetrating and original music I've yet to hear. There is a true mystery in these compositions. Sure, there is a bit of Ravel and Debussy (#1 in C Major, 2nd movement) wrapped within the powerful Eastern European influence, but the quartets' continually surprising and fetching melodic development supercedes any models. These pieces are their own worlds. I've played these quartets once a day for the last few weeks and continue to find countless new kernals of sonic delight with each hearing. The Carmina Quartet are excellent players who play with intelligence and honest emotion. The recording is spacious yet close. While it may take a few hearings to grasp the message of Szymanowski's music, the effort will be repaid many times over. A winner.

These performances of Szymanowski's String Quartets and Webern's Langsamer Satz by Carmina Qt are hard to describe with words. The ensemble captures varying shade and light of Szymanowski's magical soundscape by vivid imagination and formidable technical refinement.

There is a wondefully crafted performance of Langsamer Satz by Leipziger Qt (MDG), but this one surpasses it by the sheer beauty of tonal blend and the emotional depth and intensity. It doesn't surprise me that this disc received 1992 Gramophone Award in chamber music category and was nominated for Grammy award.

Splended recording quality with ample presence and detail.

The String Quartets of Karol Szymanowski were hard to find in the LP era. One had to scout for the recordings by the Wilanow Quartet on the Polish label Muza. A mono version of the First by the Waldman Quartet was available on Lyrichord, and one of the Second by the famous Borodin Quartet from the USSR, which could be found in a big Muza Szymanowski multiple-LP box. In 1979 the German label Da Camera Magna released another recording of the Second by the Warschauer Streichquartett, paired with Lutoslawski's and Penderecki's First, and in the early 1980s the Pro Arte Quartet recorded the two for Laurel. The situation was lamentable: Szymanowski's both String Quartets belong to the masterpieces in the genre composed in the first half of the 20th Century. Szymanowski's style is entirely personal, intensely lyrical (even evoking Schoenberg's Transfigured Night in the First String Quartet), shimmering with subtle and sensuous colors, with, especially in the Second Quartet, sinuous and sensuous melodies inspired by the music of the Near-East.

As with so many other rare repertoires the situation changed dramatically and for the better with the CD, and the recordings have multiplied (although none of the above have been reissued, except the 2nd by the Wilanow Quartet, Karol Szymanowski Works for Violin & Piano / String Quartet No 3 (Polskie Nagrania)). This one, recorded in 1991, was the second release of the two String Quartets to come my way, after the Varsovia Quartet on Olympia (The Varsovia Quartet Plays String Quartets from Poland: Szymanowski (Nos. 1 & 2) / Lutoslawski / Penderecki (No. 2)). I can't really recommend it, though.

The Carmina Quartet elicits a great sense of power, and weight even, thanks to a close recording pickup, and they have fine sense of color (try the suitably snarling sul ponticello in the 2nd Quartet's Scherzo at 1:20). They render well Szymanowski's intense, high-strung lyricism, although they are at times, in both Quartets, on the brink of lacking animation. Their approach to the 2nd movement of the First Quartet leaves me unconvinced: first, the close recording pickup makes the music jump at your ears with not much subtlety, and second the sluggish tempo adopted for the "andantino" tends to bog it down; the Varsovia Quartet shows the advantage of not confusing this "andantino" for an "adagio" or a "lento".

But it is Carmina's finale of the same First Quartet that I find most objectionable: this burlesque, polytonal scherzo (each instrument is written in a different key) evoking some clumsy country dance, is noted by Szymanowski "Vivace non troppo", but here the Carmina give so much importance to the "non troppo" part that they've lost the "vivace" in the process. Just compare their 4:20 to the Varsovia's 3:35. Despite the weight and power, the final impression is of plodding.

Another and substantial drawback is that TT is a paltry 45:20. Webern's student and not very significant composition Langsamer Satz is simply not an appropriate filler, both in content and timing. These considerations more or less rule this one out, unless you are a completist. Among those I own my favorite version is by the Varsovia Quartet, which hhas great pairings, with the Quartets of Penderecki and Lutoslawski, these two other major figures of Polish 20th Century music, and a generous TT of over 65-minutes.

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