Schoenberg: String Quartets 1 & 3 (2022)

This release completes a two-album cycle of Schoenberg's four string quartets by the young Gringolts Quartet; both recordings have rightly garnered praise, and this may be partly because the quartets are a bit underexposed compared with the rest of Schoenberg's chamber music. There are neoclassical elements to both the early, late-Romantic String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7, and String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30, and perhaps those who fetishize radicalism have found the two works insufficient in that department. The String ... Read More

This release completes a two-album cycle of Schoenberg's four string quartets by the young Gringolts Quartet; both recordings have rightly garnered praise, and this may be partly because the quartets are a bit underexposed compared with the rest of Schoenberg's chamber music. There are neoclassical elements to both the early, late-Romantic String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7, and String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30, and perhaps those who fetishize radicalism have found the two works insufficient in that department. The String Quartet No. 1 dials back the dense chromaticism of the slightly earlier Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, but both works are highly listenable. The String Quartet No. 1, in four linked movements, has a vague Straussian program and points to a heroic aspect in Schoenberg's music that is sometimes overlooked. The Third Quartet, though a pure 12-tone work, refers to classical forms even though it, too, has a program, this one referring to a fairy tale from Schoenberg's youth. The performances here... Read Less