Paul Ben-Haim: Chamber Music from Toccata Classics

[LateRomantic75]

This intriguing release appears to be within UC's remit (well, the early String Quintet, at least): http://www.toccataclassics.com/cddetail.php?CN=TOCC0214

The Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897–1974) was born Paul Frankenburger and made his early career in his native Munich. Reading the danger signs earlier than most, he emigrated to Palestine in 1933 and soon became one of the leading figures in the musical culture of the emerging Jewish community. His music mirrors this change of circumstance: the early String Quintet (1919) taps a vein of rich late Romanticism influenced by Richard Strauss, but the rhapsodic First String Quartet (1937) is coloured by middle-Eastern melisma and folk-rhythms.

(from the Toccata website)

I suspect the String Quartet will be in the same style as the 1921 Piano Quartet in C minor that Chandos recently recorded. I was rather impressed with the Quartet, which struck me as a successful amalgamation of Brahms, R. Strauss, and Impressionism.

[Claude Torres]

You will find a comprehensive (I hope so) discography and catalogue of Ben-Haim's works here

http://claude.torres1.perso.sfr.fr/Ben-Haim/BenHaimDiscographie.html

Claude