{"id":4737,"date":"2012-11-06T00:10:23","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T23:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=4737"},"modified":"2012-11-06T00:18:49","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T23:18:49","slug":"cd-review-international-record-review-calum-macdonald-on-galkrasa-complete-string-trios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2012\/11\/06\/cd-review-international-record-review-calum-macdonald-on-galkrasa-complete-string-trios\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review- International Record Review, Calum MacDonald on Gal\/Krasa Complete String Trios"},"content":{"rendered":"

Re-blogged from Broken Thirds, the Epomeo Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

A new review from critic and musicologist Calum MacDonald in the November 2012 issue of International Record Review for Ensemble Epomeo\u2019s recording of the complete trios of Hans Gal and Hans Krasa. On newsstands now, but better yet,\u00a0subscribe to the magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

The complete review follows below, but shouldn\u2019t you go ahead and order the CD first?<\/p>\n


\nBuy here from MDT UK<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy here from Arkiv USA<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy here from Amazon UK<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy here from Amazon USA<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Kenneth Woods has already made his mark, conducting the Orchestra of the Swan, in a notable series of Avie recordings of Hans G\u00e1l\u2019s orchestral works. Here he dons another hat, as cellist of the trio Ensemble Epomeo, and carries the good fight into the realms of G\u00e1l\u2019s chamber music, for the principal pieces on this disc are that composer\u2019s two works for violin, viola and cello, and very rewarding they are.<\/p>\n

The Serenade in D, Op. 41, composed in 1932, when G\u00e1l was at the height of his powers strikes me as a real discovery. In his booklet notes Woods notes the obvious debts to Haydn and Mozart and to the serenade genre as a whole, yet it strikes me very much as a work of its time. The big opening movement,\u00a0Capriccioso, Allegro assai,<\/em>\u00a0is harmonically complex and imaginative, reminding us that this is the work of a contemporary of Hindemith and Zemlinsky. If the other movements\u2014a beautiful\u00a0Cantabile<\/em>, a\u00a0Menuetto<\/em>\u00a0and a concluding\u00a0Alla Marcia<\/em>\u2014refer more clearly to classical models, they do so with wit, resource and a decidedly\u00a0 \u201ccontemporary\u201d spin; and there is enough going beneath the surface in terms of harmonic ambiguity to justify interpreting the work in the light of the anxious political times in which is was written. This Serenade deserves to be set beside G\u00e1l\u2019s four string quartets, recorded some years ago by the Edinburgh Quartet on Meridian, as one of his most important chamber scores.<\/p>\n

Nearly 40 years separate the Serenade from G\u00e1l\u2019s late Trio in F-sharp minor, Op. 104, which was written in 1971 on a commission from the London Viola d\u2019Amore Society and was originally for the line-up of violin, viola d\u2019amore and cello (G\u00e1l made the version we hear on this disc, for standard string trio, simultaneously with the viola d\u2019amore version, which would interesting to hear also). This too is a substantial work, in what seems much more a \u201clate,\u201d essentialized style\u2014yet one which also looks back to the great nineteenth-century Viennese traditions of which G\u00e1l felt himself to be heir\u2014not with much nostalgia but with decorum and respect. The extended set of Theme and Variations which serves as finale, especially, reminds me- though there is no exact equivalence in expression- of the similarly summing-up quality of the variation-finale of Brahms\u2019s Clarinet Quintet. This is a cherishable utterance of wisdom and experience.<\/p>\n

While G\u00e1l, despite losing most of his family during the Second World War, survived in Scottish exile to a distinguished old age, his younger Czech contemporary Hans Kr\u00e1sa instead had a brief sojourn as one of the most gifted of the composers crammed into the Terezin concentration camp, before being gassed at Auschwitz in October 1944. His two works for string trio date from that same year, and by now they have rightly been recorded several times\u2014most notably up to now on a splendid Nimbus disc from Daniel Hope, Philip Dukes and Paul Watkins coupled with music of two other brilliant unfortunates, Erwin Schulhoff and Gideon Klein. In his openness both to the conflicting influences of Jan\u00e1\u010dek (in the pawky Tanec) and Sch\u00f6nberg, Kr\u00e1sa produced a music of vital symbiosis, albeit on a small scale in these two works.<\/p>\n

The Passacaglia and Fugue was in fact the last music he completed, and if I think I place this new recording slightly above the Nimbus rival it must be for the treatment of the Passacaglia, much more the substantial of the two movements, where Woods and his colleagues, adopting a very broad tempo, discover even deeper refinements of instrumental tone and character in differentiating the individual variations. Indeed, all the performances radiate sympathy for the music and a focused intensity that bespeaks both familiarity with this out-of-the-way repertoire and considerable musicianship; these are not easy works to bring out in such vital and well-characterized interpretations. Avie\u2019s recording, too, is splendidly resonant and warm. A very recommendable disc for anyone interested in either composer.<\/p>\n

Calum MacDonald<\/p>\n

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