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Krommer Quartets: Fine Music, but…the Playing

David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Franz Krommer, as I have mentioned before, was by no means a “follower” of the classical tradition, but one of the principal participants in its creation. Our view of him is obscured by several factors, not the least of which is the fact that he evidently waited until the 1790s before publishing anything. By then, he was in his mid 30s, and had another 40 years or so to live, so we really don’t find in his music the sort of steady evolution typical of the difference between “early” and “late” works, although after the the turn of the 19th century marked progress is indeed detectable.

A violinist himself, Krommer composed more quartets than Haydn, and they are fine works. His treatment of sonata form is often monothematic, and his melodies are pliable, often inflected with fetching chromaticism, and smartly developed. His scoring is attractive, and much of the music has a distinctly Czech rhythmic bounce. You can hear these qualities in all three of these fetching pieces, and their evident qualities will probably make you curious about the many other works in the genre that he left us. Certainly, there was much more to him than just the partitas for wind instruments, delightful though they often are.

The Marcolini Quartett plays allegedly on “period instruments”. Let’s be honest here: there is no aspect of the historically informed performance movement sillier than the claims routinely made for the strings. Every fine violin in use today is likely a “period instrument”. Jascha Heifetz preferred gut strings. The whole thing has less to do with the instrument itself than how it’s played, and there is no evidence that the sounds modern players make reproduce anything like what musicians of the day actually did.

I say this because, regardless of the performance philosophy, there is no reason that we should tolerate the shaky intonation and flabby phrasing that we routinely hear from first violinist Jörg Buschhaus. Krommer’s quartets were written mostly for experienced amateurs; he gives much of the serious work to the ensemble’s principal violin. There are moments in all three pieces, in passagework especially, where the Marcolini’s sound is simply unpleasant. So while we do get a good sense of the music, the actual listening should be much more enjoyable than it is here. Nice try, folks.

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Recording Details:

Reference Recording: None

  • KROMMER, FRANZ:
    String Quartets: D minor Op. 74 No. 3; A minor Op. 103 No. 3; F major Op. 19 No. 2

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