Vogler Quartett’s Dvořák: Fourth Volume

courtesy of Naxos of America

The German cpo label seems to be picking up the pace in the project of the Vogler Quartett to record all of the string quartet music composed by Antonín Dvořák. The fourth album of two CDs was released a little over a month ago, which was a little more than two years after the release of the third volume. As I have previously observed, my guess is that only one more of these two-CD albums will be required to complete the project.

That said, the first CD of the latest release is devoted entirely to Dvořák’s second quartet, B. 17 in B-flat major. Dvořák tried to destroy three of his quartets. beginning with this one and followed by its two successors. However, copies of the individual instrumental parts were discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, allowing for the reconstruction of all three of those quartets. To judge by the Vogler recording, Dvořák probably had the right idea. Almost 50 minutes in duration, all of the movements, with the possible exception of the third, are overwritten to the point of exasperation. (For the record, this is the composer’s second-longest piece of chamber music.)

The second CD is more satisfying. It begins with B. 37, which Dvořák published as his Opus 9. His satisfaction with his efforts can be seen in his decision to rework the second movement (Andante con moto quasi allegretto) into his Opus 11, the F minor romance for violin and orchestra, which has been championed by many violinists, one of the most recent being Itzhak Perlman, who recorded it with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That recording was subsequently included on a Sony Classical sampler entitled Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration.

The remainder of that second CD departs from the string quartet genre for one of my personal favorites. This is the B. 148 terzetto in C major, scored for two violins and viola and published as Opus 74. I first encountered this music when I first saw The Leaves Are Fading, an extended multimovement ballet created by Antony Tudor for American Ballet Theatre in 1974. I have always suspected that Tudor wanted to get even with Jerome Robbins for the exasperating duration of Dances at a Gathering, all set to solo piano music by Frédéric Chopin, and first performed by the New York City Ballet in 1969. I have always felt that Tudor was far more imaginative, not only in his choreography but also in the Dvořák compositions he selected for that choreography, the Scherzo movement from B. 148 being one of the most stunning of those selections.