Moniuszko String Quartets & Zarębski Piano Quintet from cpo

[Sharkkb8]

On the heels of Alan's mention of the opera Paria.....release date one week from today, June 24.

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/stanislaw-moniuszko-streichquartette-nr-1-2/hnum/8992763

[Alan Howe]

The String Quartets are early works...

[Alan Howe]

From the blurb:

The composer who would become the celebrated master of the operas Halka and The Haunted Manor wrote these quartets during or shortly after his Berlin study years and in a style continuing to draw on the vocabulary of classical models. At the same time, the twenty-year-old student displays a sense of humor, melodicism, and chamber finesse that not only make for a genuinely rewarding listening experience but also are worth hearing again and again. A »late« creation by Moniuszko's young fellow Pole Juliusz Zarębski is being presented here together with the quartets. At the end of his life this favorite pupil and confidant of Franz Liszt wrote an absolutely »avant-garde« piano quintet that might have launched a bold and daring oeuvre but ended up serving as a farewell: when this virtuoso pianist and composer delighting in experiment died in 1885, he was a mere thirty-one years old.

[semloh]

The String Quartets are early works...

Perfectly reasonable, but it does seem odd to think that if there are "early works" there could be 'late works', given that he died when so young. The 1st quartet was composed 1839 and the 2nd "before 1840", i.e. when he was about 20.

I wonder how these performances will stand alongside those of the Camerata Quartet, issued by DUX in 2006, which can be heard in full on YT. I suspect the difference will be in the recording quality (?), but the other item on the CPO disc has already been issued by Hyperion, and for me the DUX coupling with the Dobrzynski string quartet is preferable.

Still, I can never have too much Moniuszko. 

[Alan Howe]

Well, Moniuszko died in 1872, at 53 - not particularly young for the nineteenth century. That would certainly make his string quartets early, no?

Were you confusing Moniuszko with Zarębski (who died at 31), by any chance?

[semloh]

Spot on, Alan! My mistake. 
Still, at my age I think of 53 as quite young! 

[Alan Howe]

Oh, me too. Easily done...