String Quartets by Brahms (Op. 51, No. 1) & Gernsheim (Op. 31)

The Mandelring Quartet is formed around the members of the Schmidt family, Sebastian and Nanette, violin and Bernhardt, cello. On the present recording the violist is Michael Scheitzbach, although their violist today is Roland Grassl. The Mandelring Quartet has an extremely wide-ranging repertoire and is probably best known to CD listeners for their series on CPO of the quartets of Georges Onslow. They are also known for their close association with the composer Berthold Goldschmidt, who dedicated his fourth quartet to them. The present recording is one of three produced in 1999 in a series entitled Brahms and Contemporaries and only released recently. Each CD pairs one of Brahms’ quartets with one by a friend or associate of his. This disc features the second quartet of Friedrich Gernsheim, a friend of Brahms and one of the few composers whose music Brahms actually liked.

Gernsheim was six years younger than Brahms and occupied successively more important positions as a conductor and pedagogue in Cologne, Rotterdam, and Berlin, where he died in 1916. In all of these positions he was a strong promoter of the music of Brahms. As a composer he wrote a lot of orchestral music, including four symphonies that have been recorded as a set on Arte Nova conducted by Siegfried Kohler, as well as concertos, choral works and much chamber music. Although on the surface a minor Brahmsian character he possesses a personality of his own and a geniality that Brahms sometimes lacked. Gernsheim wrote five string quartets, of which the second, in A-minor, is recorded here. It was published in 1875 and shows some influence of the Brahms Op. 51 quartets written two years earlier.

In comparison to the Brahms quartets, the Gernsheim A-minor has both more rhythmic push and more serenity. The development in the first movement is well done, if not fascinating, and the composer shows great imagination in the use of tonal relationships. The recapitulation is ably done. The second movement is in D-flat major and again Gernsheim handles tonal relationships well. The second section of the movement and the overall development impressed me more than anything else in the entire work, especially at 6:30 through to the end of the movement. The scherzo struck me as too Brahmsian, although the trio was much more individual and another highlight of the whole work. The quasi-rondo final movement features a recap of the opening material from the first movement and strains at the bonds of the home key. It also strains at the boundaries of chamber music and almost seems to require an orchestral texture in its last minutes. In all, a work not deserving of the obscurity it has received in the last century.

The three Brahms string quartets are well-known and well-recorded, although they have not received the affection accorded some of the other Brahms chamber works such as the piano trios or the piano quintet. The Op. 51, #1 is a tightly constructed work with the opening material generating all that comes after it. At the same time the piece thrives on counterpoint, frequently to the exclusion of all else. The Mandelrings begin at too brisk a tempo for my taste, but settle down before an excellent playing of the recapitulation. They are fine in the lovely and tentative slow movement, with it’s intricate counterpoint, and continue so in the third movement, with fine work by the violist. They do best with the feverish fourth movement, sustaining the tempo, the atmosphere and the counterpoint steadily throughout the movement. This is their finest playing on the disc.

It may have been noticed that while I spoke of the performers’ playing as a whole, I hardly mentioned any solo work. This is not accidental - the Mandelring plays as such a cohesive unit that one hardly notices individual players. All are fine when called upon individually, but it is the total sound of the group that one remembers. Perhaps this is to be expected from a quartet where three of the four instrumentalists have been playing together since infancy and where all four members are devoted to playing chamber music almost exclusively. In any event, it works very well in most of the Brahms, although there were times in both composers’ quartets where I felt that the Mandelrings sacrificed tempo control for smoothness of ensemble. I would say that this is the factor the quartet most needs to address.

All three of the discs in this series were recorded as part of the Mandelring’s own Hambacher Festival in the St. Bartholomäus-Kirche in Birkweiler in the southern Rhineland. The church lends itself better to the sound of the Brahms than the Gernsheim, but the presumably live performance mikes both works much too closely. There is also some smudging of the individual lines in certain passages in the Brahms. The close ensemble sound of the Quartet is not always well served by the acoustic in the church which sometimes blunts what should be a taut sound. However, any sonic imperfections are outweighed by the chance to hear a more than interesting quartet by a friend of Brahms. I look forward to the other two recordings in this series.

Le Quatuor Mandelring, auquel nous devons une notable intégrale Onslow et, déjà, un Quintette de Brahms, s'est voué depuis quelques années à la redécouverte des contemporains de ce dernier. Le présent volume permet de découvrir le très avenant Friedrich Gernsheim, deux autres publications sont consacrées a Otto Dessoff, à peine représente au Catalogue, et à Heinrich Herzogenberg, qui n'y figurait pas davantage que Gernsheim. Rapprochements toujours instructifs entre un maître et ses admirateurs, épigones ou artisans doués, petits ou grands talents. Pour avoir été formé au Conservatoire de Leipzig et a la Musikhochschule de Berlin, Mecque du conservatisme, le dernier nommé pourrait bien n'être qu'un habile façonnier élevé dans le respect intangible des règles. De fait, l'audition de son Quatuor en la mineur confirme cet a priori autant qu'elle permet de le nuancer. Le premier mouvement et sa pulsation viennent en droite ligne du maître de Hambourg, comme une certaine homogénéité de la pâte sonore ou se mêlent les voix mélodiques. Au fil des trois mouvements suivants se marquent cependant les titres et les limites de ce romantisme sous surveillance. Une certaine facilité rhapsodique dans l’ordonnance des idées et de leurs développements, la simplicité d'un mélodisme accompagné au secours d'un contrepoint à court d'imagination, une thématique rarement exploitée au maximum de ses virtualités, signent un travail solide mais somme toute superficiel. S'affirment néanmoins une fraîcheur et un élan communicatif. La sérénité de l’Adagio aux allures de choral, le burlesque et le lyrisme qui se partagent le Scherzo alla Haydn, le finale cavalcadant, sans être inouïs, savent capter l'attention. Les excellents interprètes, unis par un commun enthousiasme et une sonorité d'ensemble des plus chaleureuses, offrent par ailleurs un Brahms de belle allure. Dans le détail des parties comme dans la fusion symphonique qui les unit, la formation allemande menée par Sebastian Schmidt, parle Brahms comme sa langue maternelle.

Hört man das Streichquartett von Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916), so traut man seinen Ohren nicht. Warum macht man mit einem so erstrangigen und ausdrucksstarken Werk erst jetzt Bekanntschaft? Freilich, es „brahmst“ hier kräftig – doch ist das wirklich nur Epigonentum oder nicht doch ein musikalischer Dialekt, den wir sonst nur von Brahms her kennen? Im Gegensatz zu dessen Opus 51/1 gibt sich das Werk von Gernsheim ganz kammermusikalisch und findet im Mandelring Quartett einen engagierten Anwalt. Gewöhnen muss man sich allerdings ein wenig an die Kirchenakustik; dann aber wird man am profunden Spiel und homogenen Klang des Ensembles seine Freude haben.

Dies ist die erste von insgesamt drei vorgesehenen Veröffentlichungen, wo sich jeweils ein Streichquartett von Brahms und ein Quartett eines seiner Zeitgenossen gegenüber stehen. In diesem Volume 1 spielt das Mandelring Quartett von Brahms das Opus 51/1 und von Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916) das Streichquartett a-moll op. 31, das hier als Erstveröffentlichung erscheint.

Wenn Gernsheims Quartett auch kaum neue Aspekte zeigt, so ist dieses Werk doch ein künstlerisch wertvolles Stück, das durch spannungsvolle Momente, ausgearbeitete Melodien und eine gut ausbalancierte Struktur für sich einnimmt. Wer Brahms mag, der wird auch dieses Quartett von Gernsheim mögen, obwohl, und das muss man sagen, der Einfluss von Brahms stets hörbar ist.

Was diese CD aber über den rein interessanten Aspekt weit heraushebt, das ist die Interpretation des Mandelring Quartetts. Selbst wer die großen Aufnahmen der Brahms-Quartette kennt – und davon gibt es ja viele! –, der wird in dem Spiel des Mandelring Quartetts so manch Neues entdecken. Wenn auch sehr traditionsbewusst musiziert wird, so gelingt es den vier Musikern dank einer hervorragenden Aufnahmetechnik, jedes Detail hörbar zu machen. Man kann praktisch parallel die vier Stimmen verfolgen und erkennen, wie genial Brahms dieses Quartett auskomponiert hat. Darüber hinaus verleihen die Musiker dem Werk durch ihr engagiertes und lebendiges Spiel eine Leichtigkeit und Offenheit, die sich der üblichen und etwas träg wirkenden Romantik positiv entgegenstellt. Die Interpretation wirkt geschlossen, besitzt ungeheuren Drive und begeistert ebenso durch rhythmische Prägnanz wie durch verträumte Innerlichkeit. Was will man mehr, insbesondere, da hier alles frischer, neuer und interessanter klingt als gewohnt. All diese Charakteristiken kann man getrost auch auf das Quartett von Gernsheim übertragen, das somit stilistisch ungemein aufgewertet und das durch die wunderbare Arbeit des Mandelring Quartetts durchaus konkurrenzfähig wird. Zwei bravouröse Leistungen, die wir mit der Bestnote belohnen.

Formed in Neustadt, Germany, by Sebastian, Nanette, and Bernhard Schmidt, the Mandelring Quartet takes its name from the almond-tree-rich district where the siblings were born. Multiple prize winners and founders of the HambacherMusikFest, they have established themselves on stage and disc as one of Europe's most distinguished and adventurous young groups. In addition to playing the standard literature, they specialize in discovering, performing, and recording the works of contemporary and unjustly neglected composers such as Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-1996) and George Onslow (1784-1853).

Their new three-volume project combines Johannes Brahms with Heinrich von Herzogenberg, (Felix) Otto Dessoff, and, on this record, Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916), an unknown but excellent and prolific German composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. Though pairing a towering genius' masterpieces with works of his lesser contemporaries seems hazardous, Gernsheim's quartet holds its own: grandly conceived, clearly structured, texturally full-blooded but not dense, rhythmically pungent and original, it is ardently romantic. This is music that is lush, dramatic, intense, and abounding with beautiful, lyrical melodies and rich harmonies. The playing throughout is first-rate, fully equal to all technical demands, tonally warm, homogeneous and clear, deeply felt and expressive. Gernsheim could not have wished for more persuasive advocates. The Brahms is brilliant, expansive, sustaining drama, exhibiting drive and tension without haste.

The record is an admirable, welcome addition to the Romantic discography.