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Rozsa & Herrmann - Music for String Quartet | Brilliant Classics 96230

Rozsa & Herrmann - Music for String Quartet

Ł9.05

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 96230

Barcode: 5028421962306

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 28th May 2021

Contents

About

New recordings of little-known chamber music by two giants of Hollywood: the exciting debut on record of the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Merian.

While producing a string of hit scores for MGM such as the Oscar-winning Ben Hur, Miklós Rózsa (1907-95) continued to add to his distinguished catalogue of works in classical forms, often writing in a more abstract and severe style than his late-Romantic music for the movies. Rózsa himself remarked that ‘in 1948, a new style began to appear in my Piano Sonata – more percussive, contrapuntal, aggressive. The String Quartet [no.1, 1950] continued in this vein. Maybe it was an inner protest against the excessive amount of conventional music I had had to write for conventional pictures.’

In terms of influence, the tone of the Quartet (dedicated to Peter Ustinov) is closer to his teacher Kodály than that of Bartók even in the driven second movement, though even the intense lyricism of the third movement scarcely contains an angry mood which is finally resolved by the exhilarating finale. The more conventionally Romantic strains of the String Trio date from Rózsa’s student days at the Leipzig Conservatoire in 1927, assimilating Brahms as well as the edgier work of his Hungarian elders. Breitkopf & Härtel published the work in 1929 as op.1, but in 1974, the composer made major revisions to the original score, including numerous cuts, for its first recording. The ensemble merian presents the full, original version of the trio.

The album concludes in a quietly introspective vein with Echoes, the string quartet written late in life by Bernard Herrmann: one of a series of intimate, personal works akin to Richard Strauss’s ‘Indian Summer’ which produced Metamorphosen and the Four Last Songs. Evoking the muted textures of Debussy but the sombre mood of Shostakovich’s later quartet writing, the 10 continuous sections of Echoes nevertheless recall the flavour of Herrmann’s finest film music, especially the claustrophobic mood of Vertigo.

Comprised of seasoned players from Frankfurt’s two full-time symphony orchestras, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, Ensemble Merian was established for the purpose of recording of neglected classical works by composers more closely associated with motion pictures. The present release marks its debut album.

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