Prism II - Beethoven, Schnittke, Bach

Name: Prism II - Beethoven, Schnittke, Bach
SKU: 72506
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Danish String Quartet

The Danish String Quartet’s Grammy-nominated Prism project links Bach fugues, late Beethoven quartets and works by modern masters. In volume two of the series, Bach’s Fugue in Bb minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster) is brought together with Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130 and Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No.3 (composed in 1983). As the quartet explains, “A beam of music is split through Beethoven’s prism. The important thing to us is that these connections be experienced widely. We hope the listener will join us in the wonder of thee beams of music that travel all the way from Bach through Beethoven to our own times.” Recorded in historic Reitstadel Neumarkt and produced by Manfred Eicher, the album is issued as the Danish String Quartet embarks on a tour with dates on both sides of the Atlantic, climaxing with a run of Prism concerts on the West Coast of the U.S. The Quartet plays the full Prism cycle at La Jolla Music Society over five concerts in late November.

Das Grammy-nominierte Prism-Projekt des Danish String Quartet verbindet Bach-Fugen, späte Beethoven-Quartette und Werke moderner Komponisten. Im zweiten Band der Reihe wird Bachs Fuge in h-Moll aus dem ersten Teil des „Wohltemperierten Claviers“ (in der Bearbeitung des Wiener Komponisten Emanuel Aloys Förster) mit Beethovens Streichquartett op. 130 und Alfred Schnittkes Streichquartett Nr. 3 (komponiert 1983) zusammengeführt.

Das Quartett erklärt dazu: "Ein Musikstrahl wird durch Beethovens Prisma gespalten. Wichtig für uns ist, dass diese Zusammenhänge weitreichend erfahrbar sind. Wir hoffen, dass der Zuhörer mit uns das Wunder der Musikstrahlen erleben wird, die den ganzen Weg von Bach über Beethoven bis in unsere Zeit zurücklegen."

Das Album wurde im historischen Reitstadel in Neumarkt aufgenommen und von Manfred Eicher produziert. Das Danish String Quartet begibt sich auf eine Tournee mit Terminen auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks die in einer Reihe von „Prism“-Konzerten an der Westküste der USA gipfelt. Das Quartett spielt während fünf Konzerten in der La Jolla Music Society in San Diego Ende November den gesamten Prism-Zyklus.

Featured Artists

Danish String Quartet
Rune Tonsgaard SørensenViolin
Frederik ØlandViolin
Asbjørn NørgaardViola
Fredrik Schøyen SjölinVioloncello

Recorded

May 2017, Reitstadel, Neumarkt

Original Release Date

13.09.2019

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
(Johann Sebastian Bach)
1Fugue in B minor, BWV 86906:48
String Quartet No. 3
(Alfred Schnittke)
2Andante06:11
3Agitato07:49
4Pesante08:36
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, op.130
(Ludwig van Beethoven)
5Adagio ma non troppo - Allergro09:52
6Presto02:00
7Poco scherzoso. Andante con moto ma non troppo07:05
8Alla danza tedesca. Allegro assai03:22
9Cavatina. Adagio molto espressivo07:49
10Overtura. Allegro - Fuga16:44

This release by the Danish String Quartet is part of a five-album series titled ‘Prism,’ each of which will apparently include three works: an arrangement of a Bach fugue for string quartet, one of Beethoven's five late quartets, and a 20th century work that somehow lies in the shadow of both, or, to use the quartet's own words, ‘a beam of music is split through Beethoven's prism.’ In this case, the program is unusually coherent, with the String Quartet No. 3 of Alfred Schnittke engaging itself directly with the Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130, and Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, here played as the finale of the String Quartet No. 13 as Beethoven originally conceived the work. Logically, the Beethovenshould go in the middle, but after you hear the Danish String Quartet's blistering performance of the String Quartet No. 13, you'll agree that it would be an impossible act to follow. The group gets just how radical this quartet was, especially with the Grosse Fuge in place, as sharp contrasts grow throughout the work and explode in the unthinkably intense fugue. […] The Schnittke quartet is a fascinating work in itself, quoting the Beethoven extensively and exploring its sharp contrasts (sample the Agitato middle movement). One awaits the rest of the Danish String Quartet's series breathlessly, but it's possible that this volume, with a Beethoven performance for the ages, will tower over the rest.

James Manheim, All Music

Fascinatingly, in this second of the Danish Quartet’s ‘Prism’ series based around Beethoven’s late quartets, they trace the prismatic connections between the three pieces in the order Bach-Schnittke-Beethoven, creating a revelatory connected soundscape in which (even after the agonized hectoring of the Schnittke) Beethoven’s super-compressed introspection feels even more (at times wildly) unsettling than usual. […] yet it is the ‘Grosse Fuge’ that perhaps inspires the most insightful playing of all, with vibrato kept to an intonation-clarifying minimum and passages of dotted-rhythm thrusting delivered with a rapier-like precision, offset by oases of profound calm.

Julian Haylock, BBC Music Magazine (Five stars)

Es ist mitunter frappierend, wie das Danish String Quartet in diesem mehr als 230 Jahre umspannenden Zeithorizont Bezüge und Fortentwicklungen freilegt: Beethoven und Schnittke sind wie ein Prisma, die Bachs Lichtstrahl aufspalten und umlenken. Die Skandinavier legen Wert auf klare Strukturen und balancieren den Gesamtklang vorbildlich aus, natürlich und klangvoll dokumentiert von der Technik. Eine äußerst erhellende Reise durch die Musikgeschichte.

Andreas Fritz, Audio

Beethovens späte Quartette sind tief in der Tradition verwurzelt – und weisen zugleich in die Zukunft. Diese Verbindungen nachzuzeichnen, hat sich das Danish String Quartet als Ziel seiner Reihe ‘Prism’ vorgenommen. […] Bachs h-Moll-Fuge aus dem Wohltemperierten Clavier erklingt zu Beginn als exemplarisches Vorbild für das lineare Denken des späten Beethoven; im dritten Streichquartett von Alfred Schnittke zitiert und verfremdet der Komponist das Thema der Großen Fuge, mit der Beethoven die ursprüngliche Version seines B-Dur-Quartetts op. 130 beendet. Schon hier, bei Schnittke, demonstriert das Danish String Quartet die von ihm bekannte Flexibilität im Klang, mit einer Palette von vibratolos-fahlen Farben bis zur brutalen Attacke. Diese Bandbreite macht sich das Ensemble auch im besagten B-Dur-Quartett von Beethoven zunutze, findet aber insgesamt einen weicheren Zugang als man gewohnt ist. Nicht, weil etwa die schroffen Konturen geglättet würden; die ‘Große Fuge’ wirkt genau so schroff, kontrastreich und beklemmend dicht, wie es der Notentext verlangt.

Marcus Stäbler, Fono Forum (Five stars)

Versatility is a signal virtue of the ensemble: their smoothly planed, viol-like pure tune in the opening Bach fugue (to close Book 1 of the ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’, the one with all 12 notes) as well as the Lassus cadence which opens the Schnittke (this album is full of doors closing on to new and initially disorienting rooms) carries no trace of irony or displacement. It’s natural music-making, and no less winning in their ways are the quartet’s blithe assimilation of 18th-century minuet style in the ‘Poco scherzando’ of the Beethoven, or in the finale of the Schnittke.

Peter Quantrill, Gramophone

Die Cavatina ist der emotionale Höhepunkt einer über weite Strecken geradezu liebevollen Interpretation und eines spannenden Albums. Im Kontext von Tradition und Moderne hört man Beethovens Spätwerk noch einmal ganz neu und anders – zumindest wenn es so warmherzig musiziert wird wie vom Danish String Quartet.

Marcus Stäbler, Westdeutscher Rundfunk

No quartet playing today has the Danish’s way with late Beethoven. Proof: a Cavatina that sings with divinity and yet with humanity; that neither wallows in beauty nor looks the other way; that, put frankly, is eight perfect minutes.

David Allen, The New York Times

Die jetzt als ‘Prism II’ erschienene Aufnahme von Beethovens op. 130 ist die zweite dieser auf insgesamt fünf CDs angelegten Reihe, die jeweils ein spätes Beethoven-Quartett aus einer doppelten zeitlichen Perspektive heraus erschließt. Nicht auf akademische Weise, sondern durch ästhetische Erfahrung, die die Chronologie auf den Kopf stellen darf. Jede CD der Reihe verbindet ein Beethoven-Quartett mit einer Bach-Fuge und einem Werk der jüngeren, noch gegenwartsnahen Vergangenheit. Dabei steht aber Beethoven jeweils nicht in der Mitte, sondern am Ende einer als Zeitschleife angelegten musikalischen Erzählung. Sie beginnt mit Johann Sebastian Bach in einer Transkription der Beethoven-Zeit und führt durch Alfred Schnittkes prgrammatische Polystilistik hindurch zu Beethoven – gleichzeitig zurück und voraus. Die Zeiten scheinen aufgehoben, und so öffnet sich ein Kosmos unendlicher Spiegelungen. So wie Beethovens Komposition weit nach hinten und nach vorne blickt, so tun das auf eigene Weise auch die anderen beiden Werke. […] Dem Danish String Quartet gelingt dieser erzählerische Bogen, weil es bei aller stilistischen Wandlungsfähigkeit kein Maskenspiel betreibt. Bach vibratoarm gespielte Fuge erschient nicht blutleer, Schnittkes frenetischer Ausdruckswut wird nicht der kontrolliert resonanzreiche Klang geopfert. Bei Beethoven empfindet man gleichzeitig starken rhythmischen Drive und große Wärme.

Martin Wilkening, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Each of the albums in the Danish String Quartet's ongoing Prism project links one of the five late Beethoven quartets with a Bach fugue and a kindred-spirit work by a later master. Released last year, the Grammy-nominated first instalment of the series earned wide acclaim. The second volume of the series begins with the Fugue in B minor, BWV 869,which completes J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (in an arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster, an elder contemporary of Beethoven). As Prism I included a quartet by Shostakovich, Prism II features one Alfred Schnittke. Characteristically, Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 of 1983 echoes with the sound of ghosts, from the late 16th century (Orlando Lassus and his Stabat Mater) to the mid-20th century (Shostakovich and his musical monogram of DSCH – which, as Paul Griffiths points out in his booklet essay, can be sensed as a transposition of the first four notes of the theme from Beethoven’s titanic “Grosse Fugue”). The original version of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130, included the “Grosse Fugue” as its final movement – which is how the DSQ presents the piece on Prism II.

In a prefatory note to the five-album Prism series, DSQ violist Asbjørn Nørgaard explains that even with the groundbreaking, future-minded aspects of the late Beethoven quartets, “this music is far from being disconnected from the past. Rather, Beethoven was focusing deeply on tradition and the ‘old days’ during the last days of his life, and was especially obsessed with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, from which he derived many of the melodic motifs in his five late quartets… What Beethoven did with this tradition, however, was mind-blowing. His late quartets were so extreme and brilliant that they changed the game. Every composer after Beethoven had to consider these works and somehow figure out how to carry the torch. Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach and exploded everything into myriad colors, directions and opportunities – much in the same way a prism splits a beam of light.”

Beethoven completed his six-movement Op. 130 in 1826. As the biggest of his late quartets, the Op. 130 ranges from the comic to the cosmic, from Haydnesque scherzo to Mahlerian love song and beyond. After the work’s initial performance, Beethoven’s publisher persuaded him to substitute a shorter, lighter-toned finale for the 15-minute-plus “Grosse Fugue,” its length and level of dissonance considered too much for audiences of the time. The “Grosse Fugue” was first published as a standalone work, as Op. 133. Performers today, like the DSQ, often favor the composer’s original intentions, using the “Grosse Fugue” as the quartet’s finale. Encapsulating Schnittke’s polystylistic manner, his milestone String Quartet No. 3 takes the kaleidoscopic aspects of Beethoven’s Op. 130 into the late 20th century. With the work’s opening quotation of Lassus, the DSQ evokes a Renaissance consort of viols before digging into keening dissonances with a full, modern tone. Across the work, Beethoven and Shostakovich, waltz and lament, eras and emotions “twist and turn” in Griffiths’ phrase, the music feeling unsettled, otherworldly and, ultimately, timeless.

Prism II comes as the DSQ embarks on a tour with concerts on both sides of the Atlantic, from Germany, Denmark and Belgium in September-October to a full, five-concert Prism cycle for California’s La Jolla Music Society in November. Referencing the links between Bach, Beethoven and the modernists who came after them, Nørgaard says: “The important thing to us is that these connections be experienced widely on an intuitive level. We hope the listener will join us in wonder at these beams of music that travel all the way from Bach through Beethoven as far as our own times.”

Danish String Quartet

The Danish String Quartet has an almost lifelong history of musical collaboration. Its three members born in Denmark – violist Asbjørn Nørgaard and violinists Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and Frederik Øland – first played chamber music together in a summer camp before they were even teenagers, and then continued to do so throughout the school year, driven by their own enthusiasm. In 2006, the group made its first recordings – of Carl Nielsen’s quartets – as the Young Danish String Quartet, attracting the attention of publications from Gramophone to The New York Times. In 2008, Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin joined the quartet, and the foursome has since gone from strength to strength. In 2011, the DSQ received the Carl Nielsen Prize, Denmark’s most important cultural award.

The group’s 2017 ECM album, Last Leaf, saw it explore the texturally rich, emotionally resonant world of Nordic folk music. The DSQ played its custom arrangements of this material with the focus that had earned the quartet such plaudits as “spellbinding” from Strings magazine for its ECM New Series debut of 20th-century compositions by Per Nørgård, Hans Abrahamsen and Thomas Adès, released in 2016. Both albums were singled out as among the best releases of the year by The New York Times.