Search - Franck, Kocian :: String Quartet in D Major

RICH, ROBUST, yet ETHEREAL...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 08/05/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

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This is a fine recording of a marvelous performance of Franck's rarely heard string Quartet. Actually there are several readings of the Franck Quartet out there: Franck, Chausson: String Quartets ; still, it is rarely broadcast on FM radio--due to its length (approx. :45mins), perhaps... More likely it is eschewed because it is rich, deep, purely cerebral aesthetic art which in this space-time of anti-intellectualism is obviously not "popular."



In his late work, Franck--(who was a very mild-mannered man)--seems to have had the artistic and intellectual ambition to meet, and even exceed, late-Beethoven. Wagnerianism must have been his impetus. With his spate of large and weighty chamber works for solo piano Franck: Prélude, fugue et variation; organ works transcribed for piano César Franck: Piano Works Franck Piano Transcriptions: Violin Sonata; Pastorale , solo organ Complete Works for Organ , solo harmonium César Franck: Intégrale de l'oeuvre d'harmonium , violin (or flute) Sonata Dvorák: Sonatina in G major; Schubert: Introduction and Variations; Franck: Sonata in A major , and string Quartet, Franck pursued his vision.



Withal, the Quartet begins where the late-Beethoven Quartets leave off; and from that point, it proceeds aesthetically unto Schoenberg's official First Quartet (Op. 7) Schönberg: STRING QUARTET D MAJOR / STRING QUARTET OP 7 --although there is no direct connection: Franck was working in virtual isolation, while there is a much more direct connection between late-Beethoven and early-Schoenberg. Submit it as an example of fin-de-siècle zeitgeist--collective consciousness.



The Czechs have for centuries been a very sophisticated people, and the talented artists issued on the fine Praga label--(now distributed by the French at Harmonia Mundi)--continue to prove the point. The Pragers Kocian's running times are similar to others'--(including the Juilliard's); however, their reading is quite unique: this suggests that their overall vision of the gestalt of the work is distinctive. Certainly their reading is wondrously episodic in its subtly parsed voicing. And while their sound is very rich in unison, otherwise their timbres are very light and ethereal. Recorded sound spatial and excellent.



Bonus is Lalo's rare Beethovenian quartet.



Absolutely doubleplus bonus is the tasteful cover-art by Gusave Moreau--(who was not widely recognized till J.-K. Huysmans revealed him to the world in Antinomianism Against Nature (Oxford World's Classics) , which,of course, was of equal influence upon Wilde as was Pater's Renaissance essays The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Oxford World's Classics) ). Moreover, Moreau's art is reproduced again larger and shown in a clear interior CD case: they went to a lot of effort on this, and it's very special and nice.



Fine Art in the New Dark Age.

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