Klughardt Chamber Music

[Mark Thomas]

jpc are advertising a very welcome new CD for September release from the, unknown to me. Cavi label featuring Klughardt's First String Quartet and his Piano Quintet. Details (but no sound samples yet) are here. The Quintet is already available from MDG, but it's a first for the Quartet.

[Alan Howe]

Oh bother! Beaten to it! For me a must-buy!

[eschiss1]

The MDG recording of the quintets (piano and string) seemed good to me (our public library has this) - some duplication here then as you noted but also material for comparison of performances which is not a -bad- thing, when (if) the CAvi CD is released. Hope they do the 2nd quartet too (though a recording of that is already online.) Sound samples are up; the track headings need to be guessed at but the quartet (no.1, in F Op.42) movements are
*Allegro
*Adagio in B-flat
*Scherzo: Allegro molto in D minor
*Allegro non troppo

The piano quintet has
*Lento - Allegro con fuoco
*Adagio
*Moderato, molto espressivo
*Allegro non troppo

[EdwardHan]

I got this volume from Amazon Mp3 yesterday. The performance of the String Quartet is fine but the work is not quite interesting and imaginative, and I think Klughardt's employ of fugal sections are not convincing enough in many of his chamber music. The Piano Quintet recorded in this CD is not as good as the MDG CD, although not bad. I will keep waiting for any companies to record his String Sextet.

[Mark Thomas]

I downloaded the tracks yesterday from iTunes as for some reason Amazon aren't selling them yet to UK residents. Unfortunately, having played the Quartet twice and the Quintet once, I have to agree with Edward: at first hearing these performances are a disappointment.

Taking the Piano Quintet first, as we have a direct comparison available, MDG's Leipzig Quartet performance has confidence and an attractive edgy quality. In their hands the music goes somewhere and, as a result, it convinces. The Pleyel Quartet in this new recording seem to take a more understated and diffident view of the work,  almost as if they have no confidence in it. Although it's technically well played, from an interpretive standpoint it comes across more as a run through. I'll stick with the Leipzigers.

The First String Quartet is new territory, so I have to rely on my faith in Klughardt's general quality as a composer and the evidence of the Piano Quintet when I say that the failure of this work to impress again lies with the Pleyel Quartet's lacklustre interpretation. The piece only comes alive in the finale, and then barely so. The opening Allegro meanders with little momentum (never usually a problem with Klughardt), the Adagio is just plain clumsy (in places the line is almost lost altogether) and the Scherzo fails to fizz. Although I suspect that part of the problem is the dragging tempi in the first two movements in particular there is little conviction in the playing; it's almost as if they are reluctantly fulfilling a contract, rather than playing a piece because they love it.

Maybe on repeated hearings I'll change my view. I hope so, but I doubt it.

[Alan Howe]

From the audio samples available at jpc, it sounds as though the string-players are using very little vibrato - i.e. in a HIP manner. That seems to me to be a mistake in this repertoire...

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, that's certainly true. The performances of both works are very "flat".

[Mark Thomas]

.. and yet, I listened to the work just now and found myself enjoying it much more than I had the first few times around. The criticisms of the performance are still valid, but the music itself seemed stronger and more involving. The key for me was to listen to Klughardt's Third Symphony beforehand; that clearly helped me "get" the First String Quartet, which post dates it by four years. The first movement is certainly rather discursive but doesn't strike me now as being aimless.  Both the Scherzo and the Finale have the same easy going  non-heroic, pastoral but never bucolic character which suffuses the Symphony. I'm afraid that I still found the slow movement a disappointment but I think that really is down to the players. I can't believe that Klughardt would write something so clumsy.