Haydn, Ravel & Stravinsky: Works for String Quartet

Album review

New York's Tesla Quartet's name was inspired not by the scientific inventions of Nikola Tesla, but from a more poetic comment by the wild-man physicist: "Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them." The quotation gives a concrete idea of the Quartet's style in addition to its more general evocation making chamber music: the group emphasizes a sense of ensemble to an unusual degree. In the String Quartet in F major of Ravel and in the Haydn String Quartet in C major, Op. 54, No. 2, they even mute the metrical accents of the music, creating a unique floating but tense quality. Sample either of the slow movements of these works. Stravinsky's Concertino for string quartet, all slashing cross rhythms, jumps out of the program, and in general the players are aware of how they are making each of the major works its own little world: they take the uncommon step of adding entr'actes, in the form of transcriptions of Ravel piano minuets by first violinist Ross Snyder. This lowers the academic level of formality generated by the traditional quartet program format and brings the listener back to the larger works with renewed focus. The placement of Haydn's quartet in the middle is also unusual; he comes first, but the qualities of the visionary slow movement are intensified here. The Tesla Quartet has made a strong impact in concerts in New York and beyond, but this release on Orchid Classics, superbly recorded at England's Wyastone Estate concert hall, is their debut. It promises much.
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