Joseph Martin Kraus: Streichquartette

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Joseph Martin Kraus has made one of the most impressive comebacks of any composer belonging to an age as distant as his is to the twenty-first century. Though two centuries would pass between his death in 1792 and the eventual revival of his music, within the space of roughly a decade Kraus' 200 or so surviving compositions have practically all been recorded. Carus Verlag in Stuttgart is publishing a critical edition of Kraus' chamber music that does not involve the piano, and in connection with that publication, the newly minted Salagon Quartett has recorded five of Kraus' 10 string quartets for Carus Verlag's in-house label. Six of Kraus' quartets appeared in an early print as his Opus 1 and four others exist in manuscript; in 1992, the Joseph Martin Kraus String Quartet was founded out of the ranks of Concerto Köln to record them all for Cavalli Records. It took so long for Cavalli to get around to issuing the second volume that this Carus Verlag issue got the scoop on Kraus' C minor and E major quartets, among the most interesting of the quartets found only in manuscript.
While the influence of Haydn is prevalent in all of Kraus' quartets, they do demonstrate a wide range of variety and independence from the model. Kraus does not feel the need to adhere to Haydn's formal schemes, as these are three-movement works save the C minor quartet, which is in two. The C minor quartet also stands out by virtue of its overall sobriety, slow tempo, and dark mood. Certain individual movements, such as the dance-like "Scozzese" of the C major quartet and the violent contrasts of the Allegro assai belonging to the same work, also pick up one's attention. While Kraus' quartets may not be as enthralling as his symphonies, they are unusual within the context of their time and well merit recording. The Salagon Quartett was founded in 2004 and the accord of its playing demonstrates considerable promise for such a young group (this disc was recorded in 2005), though sometimes leader Christine Busch's passagework is a little slippery, which may in part result from playing on gut strings occasioned by the period of the music. The recording was made at the SWR studio in Stuttgart, the sound is clean, full, and lightly reverberant, and all of Kraus' melodic lines are clearly voiced. This puts the edge over the Cavalli cycle, which is distant, dark, and not easy to make out at all.

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