Marx: Complete String Quartets

Album review

Interest in Joseph Marx's music has increased considerably since the 1980s, due in part to growing demands from audiences to hear more tonal music from the early twentieth century. Marx was a younger contemporary of Arnold Schoenberg, but he was unwilling to adopt the elder composer's atonality or his twelve tone method, which came to dominate Viennese circles. Instead, like Erich Korngold and Alexander von Zemlinsky, Marx maintained the use of tonality in all his music, though his handling of it was quite advanced -- thanks to the strong influence of Max Reger, Alexander Scriabin, and Claude Debussy -- and his chamber works are surprisingly modern in their tone and in their rejection of Wagnerian expressions. The Quartetto in modo antico (1937-1938) hearkens back to the Renaissance for its contrapuntal techniques, but in terms of harmony and string sonorities, it seems more akin to the quartets by Debussy and Ravel, and also resembles the modal chamber music current at the time in England. The Quartetto in modo classico (1940-1941) is a bit too obviously imitative of Viennese string quartet music from Haydn to Schubert and seems almost like an academic exercise. But the String Quartet in A major, "Quartetto chromatico" (1936-1938, revised 1948), makes up for the previous work's pastiche-like weaknesses in its striking rhapsodic character, interesting mix of themes, and resourceful modulations; it somewhat suggests what a string quartet by Scriabin might have sounded like. Of course, these pieces are not firmly established in the repertoire, and some skepticism about their value is warranted; but if any ensemble argues persuasively for their future survival, the Thomas Christian Ensemble makes a compelling case. This quartet's repartee is fluid and distinctive, and its cohesiveness lends the music the clarity, force, and unity it needs to be convincing; the group gives these pieces the accomplished performances they need to get noticed and played more often. CPO's reproduction is nothing less than excellent, and so clear and close up that sometimes the musicians' breathing is audible.

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