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Cesko - Dvorak, Schulhoff / Ragazze Quartet

Release Date: 05/12/2015
Label: Channel Classics Catalog #: 36815 Spars Code: DDD
Composer:  Antonín Dvorák ,  Erwin Schulhoff Orchestra/Ensemble:  Ragazze Quartet Number of Discs: 1

The primary reason to care about this recording is the presence of two Erwin Schulhoff works: the tempest in a teapot Quartet No. 1 and the clever, expert, and stylistically facile Esquisses de Jazz, its original piano version arranged here for string quartet by Dutch composer Leonard Evers.

Is there a string quartet that begins with more explosive energy than Schulhoff’s First, from 1924? There are more compelling and masterfully developed ideas in this surprisingly compact quartet than you will find in the complete works of some other composers–the third (Allegro giocoso alla slovaca) and last (Andante molto sostenuto) movements in particular are full of technical, textural, thematic, and harmonic invention that sounds as Read more modern (in the best, most agreeable sense) as anything you will hear today. We can only speculate what this composer would have achieved had he not died in 1942 at the hands of the Nazis at age 48.

The set of six jazz pieces–with titles such as “Rag”, “Tango”, “Blues”, and “Charleston”–is so adroitly written, and performed here with such assured, sexy, sassy, stylish authority by the four ragazze (an Italian word for “girls”), that you will likely press the repeat button more than a time or two to savor an arrangement that arguably is even more engaging than the original piano version.

The performance of the Dvorák Op. 106, a quartet that has justifiably received a multitude of excellent recordings (see our reviews archive), is as good as you will find on Supraphon (Pavel Haas), Cedille (Pacifica), or RCA (Guarneri), the energy, tack-sharp articulation, and just plain finesse and fire in the playing is enough to keep you interested and undistracted by even the most compelling iPhone Siren-call or the jingle-jangle lure of text or tweet. Turn off all devices; sit back and listen, and be pleasantly reminded of the joy of pure music, embodied by this recording, with its sensual, scintillating sound and enlivening performances.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com
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