Beethoven: Quartet No. 15 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

This year I have certainly managed to acquire a healthy batch of recordings by the Erling Bloch Quartet, and here is the latest installment, apparently the Danish ensemble's only recording of Beethoven:

Beethoven: Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded April 12 and 13, 1951
HMV DB 20143 through DB 20147, five 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 117.62 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 70.74 MB)

It's a good, honest performance, a little broader in tempo than was customary for 78-rpm recordings of this work, particularly in the finale. It may not have the searing intensity of the 1937 version by the Busch Quartet (which, incidentally, was slated for deletion in the HMV 1950-51 catalogue), but then, which other version did? I hate making comparisons like this, but in the case of this particular piece I can't help it, because of all the Beethoven quartets Op. 132 is the one I love most, and the Busch performance is my ideal...

Holmboe: Quartet No. 1 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

Vagn Holmboe

Twice in the past I have presented works by the most celebrated Danish composer since Nielsen, Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996): the Serenata, Opus 18 and the Notturno for Wind Quintet, Opus 19 - together constituting two-thirds of the total works of Holmboe recorded on 78-rpm discs. Here now is the third and last of these pioneering recordings:

Holmboe: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 46 (1949)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded April 9, 1951
HMV DB 20137 through DB 21039, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 58.74 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 38.75 MB)

This fine three-movement quartet, the first of a remarkable series of twenty, was dedicated to, and premièred by, the Erling Bloch Quartet. Holmboe had, in fact, written no less than ten string quartets (not all of them actually completed) before the one he allowed to go out into the world as his First; at the time of its composition, he had already written six of his thirteen symphonies, and all but two of his series of thirteen chamber concertos. The first three of the numbered quartets were written in rapid succession, assigned consecutive opus numbers and recorded within five years - the Second by the Musica Vitalis Quartet for Decca, and the Third by the Koppel Quartet (the dedicatees), also for Decca. The latter was reissued on CD as part of the "Decca Sound - Mono Years" box set issued a couple of years ago.

More from the Erling Bloch Quartet

In time for Carl Nielsen's birthday this year (June 9), I present the first recording ever made of a string quartet by him, done during the early months of the Nazi occupation of Denmark by the Erling Bloch Quartet. This recording does not appear to have been reissued on CD; Danacord passed over it in favor of the Koppel Quartet's 1954 account (though their 1984 LP set of early Nielsen chamber recordings did contain a rather inept transfer). I also offer two single discs by the Erling Bloch ensemble to ride, as it were, the coattails of the Nielsen. The details:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 44
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Pedersen-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded October 26, 1940
HMV DB 1-3, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 71.21 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.42 MB)

Hakon Børresen: Scherzo (from Quartet No. 2 in C Minor, 1939)
and
Schubert: Quartettsatz in C Minor, D. 703
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded November 19, 1942
HMV DB 5282, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC files, 23.70 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 14.98 MB)

Stravinsky: Concertino for String Quartet (1920)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Christiansen)
Recorded August 26, 1952
HMV DA 5275, one 10-inch 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 13.81 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.16 MB)

The delightful scherzo by Hakon Børresen (1876-1954), a Dane of Norwegian heritage who studied with Johan Svendsen, reminds me of the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, with its pizzicato main section and arco middle section. Yes, the Schubert is complete on one side, thanks to a brisk tempo and the omission of the repeat. The Stravinsky is, I believe, the ensemble's last recording to be issued as a 78,

The issue series in which the Nielsen set found itself was HMV's first automatic set series in Denmark, most of whose numbers were recorded during the Second World War (except for one reissue). I am aware of the existence of the following issues in it:

DB 1-3  Nielsen: Quartet No. 4 (Erling Bloch Quartet)
DB 4-6  Schubert: Fantasia in C, Op. 159  (Erling Bloch, Lund Chistiansen)
DB 7-9  Schubert: "Unfinished" Symphony  (Stokowski, from 1927 Victors)
DB 10-13  Beethoven: "Kreutzer" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 14-16  Beethoven: "Spring" Sonata  (Bloch, Christiansen)
DB 17-20  Nielsen: Symphony No. 2  (Jensen, earlier recording from 1944)

Happy Birthday, Béla Bartók!

Béla Bartók, 1939

Last year, to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Bartók's birth (March 25, 1881), Decca Classics issued a box set of his complete works on 32 CDs. One of these days I suppose I will have to spring for that, but meanwhile, I have acquired and hereby present a somewhat more modest offering, although, I think, no less valuable. Remarkably, Bartók's Sixth Quartet received three recordings in the 78-rpm era, more than did any of his major works except the Concerto for Orchestra and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (each of which also received three 78-rpm recordings). The first, by the Gertler Quartet for Decca, can be heard at the CHARM website; the second, by the Hungarian Quartet for HMV, I have myself uploaded previously. The third, also for HMV, followed the second by scarcely a month:

Bartók: Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114 (1939)
The Erling Bloch Quartet (Bloch-Friisholm-Kassow-Svendsen)
Recorded April 26, 1948
HMV DB 20104 through DB 20106, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 73.34 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.25 MB)

One imagines that the HMV office in Copenhagen was unaware of the existence of the Hungarians' recording (made while that ensemble was in London), or else this duplication of repertoire would probably not have been sanctioned. Then again, the Danish recording had the advantage of price, as it is the only one of the three versions that gets the piece onto three discs rather than four. David Hall, writing in Records: 1950 Edition, sums up the respective merits of the three recordings this way: "The Gertler Quartet recording for English Decca offers the most dramatic and colorful treatment of the music; the Danish Erling Bloch Quartet ensemble, the most lean and rhythmically supple; while the Hungarian Quartet has some of the best qualities of both." He then strongly suggests waiting for the forthcoming Juilliard Quartet recordings of all the Bartók quartets for Columbia...

Nielsen: Quartet No. 3 (Erling Bloch Quartet)

Erling Bloch Quartet

Carl Nielsen wrote four string quartets, the last one dating from 1906.  This means that all of them are relatively early works, for he lived another twenty-five years.  It has been regretted by many (including the composer's daughter, who is said to have encouraged him, to no avail) that he made no contributions to the genre in his musical maturity, especially as Nielsen was a violinist himself and might be expected to have a special understanding of writing for stringed instruments.  But he wasn't interested, and on the basis of the direction his music took in the last fifteen years, I can understand why: his later works glory in contrasts between instruments, and the homogeneous sound of the string quartet wouldn't offer much scope for that kind of writing.  Be that as it may, there is much to enjoy in the Nielsen quartets, and the present one is, for me, the best of them:

Nielsen: Quartet No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 14
The Erling Bloch String Quartet
Recorded September 22-23, 1946
HMV DB 20100 through DB 20103, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.07 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 48.10 MB)

The distinguished Danish violinist Erling Bloch (1904-1992) founded the quartet bearing his name in 1933; its other members were Lavard Friisholm, second violin (who later directed the Copenhagen Collegium Musicum, whose recording of Bentzon's Chamber Concerto I uploaded recently), Hans Kassow, viola, and Torben Svendsen, cello.  With Svendsen, Bloch later founded the Danish Quartet, an ensemble consisting of flute (played by Gilbert Jespersen, the dedicatee of Nielsen's Flute Concerto), violin, cello and piano.