Half a century ago, a string quartet formed in Vienna. This might not seem like an especially noteworthy event, given that city’s towering importance in the history of music — and chamber music, in particular. Surely quartets have always been a dime a dozen there.
Hard as it is to believe, though, Vienna had no full-time string quartet in 1970. The groups that existed were made up of orchestral players who did chamber music on the side. Günter Pichler, a young violinist who had already served as concertmaster of both the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony, saw an opening.
He and three colleagues founded the Alban Berg Quartet — which lasted 38 years, with remarkably few lineup changes, as one of the world’s premier chamber music groups. To mark the 50th anniversary of the quartet’s founding, Warner Classics recently released its entire catalog in a hefty box set of 62 CDs and eight DVDs.
The immersion offers proof that the Berg’s collective technique was unified and all but flawless. In its sound — warm, refined and balanced — you could hear an unmistakable connection to its home city’s venerable tradition of string playing. The quartet was, you might say, echt Viennese.
But the group was also firmly committed to modernity, signaled by the choice of Berg, perhaps Vienna’s greatest 20th-century composer, as its namesake. Its glowing sound could be deployed just as beautifully in works by Webern and Berio as in luxurious performances of Brahms and Dvorak. The quartet insisted on playing a 20th-century work on virtually every program; while that may seem unremarkable today, in 1970 it was anything but.
The group even turned down a recording contract from what was then the world’s most prestigious classical label, Deutsche Grammophon, because its members insisted on recording Berg’s two string quartets for their debut. (The label wanted Boccherini.)
Once it did begin recording, on Teldec then EMI, the Berg covered large swaths of the quartet canon: two complete Beethoven sets, as well as works by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. Its output also encompassed Berg, Bartok and Webern — but, sadly, no Schoenberg — as well as more contemporary works, such as premieres by Rihm, Schnittke and Berio.
It was through those recordings that the Berg became, on balance, my favorite string quartet. Part of it was simply that many of its albums were the ones my parents had around the house when I first became serious about classical music as a teenager. It’s true, those first impressions tend to endure. But for whatever combination of reasons, if not for every composer, era or style — all that luxurious sound often smothered Mozart’s dramatic energy — this was the group I sought out first and returned to most often.
Some listeners I know heard in the Berg little more than technical perfection, judging its work admirable but sterile. Almost always, though, I heard something else: an approach to quartet playing that held ensemble acuity, a grasp of musical architecture, inner tension and sheer beauty in a kind of miraculous balance. The Berg became for me the quartet that seemed able to do so many things right simultaneously: balance four voices without losing sight of individual lines; create an exquisite sound while avoiding sentimentality; convey the structure of a piece but not a sense of dullness or didacticism.
It was through recordings that I came to know and love the Berg; the group toured regularly but not widely, and almost never where I was. The two occasions on which I saw them, however — a Bartok-Mozart program in London and a gripping Schubert concert at Carnegie Hall — are highlights of my musical life. Those performances also confirmed that the Berg sounded just as immaculate live as on record.
A life of listening always leads you to seek out new and unexpected approaches to music you know. Yet what you return to most often, I find, are those performances that are not only familiar but also have an uncanny sense that what you are hearing is a piece’s direct, unfiltered essence. The many hours I spent with the Berg’s mammoth 50th-anniversary set were a reminder of how rare and rewarding that experience can be, and how often these performers provided it.
Five essential recordings
SCHUBERT Quartet No. 15 in G (D. 887); String Quintet in C (D. 956), with Heinrich Schiff, cello
Few groups have the Berg’s grasp of the intimate link between innocence and terror in Schubert’s late works. Over and over in these masterly performances, nostalgic beauty leads to anguish and back again — ideally paced and executed.
◆ ◆ ◆
BEETHOVEN Complete Quartets
The Berg recorded Beethoven’s 16 quartets and the Grosse Fuge twice, and while both cycles have their virtues, my preference is for the earlier one, from the late 1970s and early ’80s. The group’s glowing sound, combined with brisk, unsentimental tempos, create readings of unusual freshness and discovery.
◆ ◆ ◆
BERG Quartet (Op. 3); Lyric Suite
As with the Beethoven, the group made two recordings of both these works by the quartet’s namesake. The later versions offer clarity, ravishing color and smoldering intensity.
◆ ◆ ◆
BARTOK Complete Quartets
Look elsewhere for renditions of these works that capture the earthy folk roots of Bartok’s writing. The Berg leans heavily on these quartets’ modernist features, highlighting every crunching dissonance. The result may not be authentically Hungarian, but it makes for riveting music-making.
◆ ◆ ◆
RIHM Quartet No. 4; SCHNITTKE Quartet No. 4
Both these works abound with fractured surfaces and jarring shifts in mood. The Berg manages all of it, with not only superlative playing but also a timbral lushness that softens each piece’s rigor.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
