Stenhammar: String Quartets Volume 2

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A charming and repeatable release where No. 6, especially, deserves to be better known. — Gramophone Magazine, January 2014 More…

Release Date: 4th Nov 2013
Catalogue No: BIS2009
Label: BIS
Length: 65 minutes

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Stenhammar: String Quartet No. 5 in C major, Op. 29 'Serenade'

Work length19:22

$4.50

$6.50

$8.75

Stenhammar Quartet
Recorded: December 2012
Recording Venue: Petrus Kyrkan, Stocksund, Sweden

I. Allegro molto con spirito

Track length5:19

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II. Ballata. Allegretto scherzando

Track length7:35

$1.50

$2.60

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III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace

Track length2:00

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IV. Finale. Allegro molto

Track length4:28

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$1.75

Stenhammar: String Quartet in F minor

Work length21:05

$4.00

$5.20

$7.00

Stenhammar Quartet
Recorded: October 2011
Recording Venue: Petrus Kyrkan, Stocksund, Sweden

I. Allegro

Track length6:20

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II. Adagio. Con intimissimo sentimento, poco scherzando

Track length6:33

$1.00

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III. Allegro giocoso

Track length3:53

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IV. Allegretto

Track length4:19

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$1.30

$1.75

Stenhammar: String Quartet No. 6 in D minor, Op. 35

Work length24:48

$5.00

$7.80

$10.50

Stenhammar Quartet
Recorded: December 2012
Recording Venue: Petrus Kyrkan, Stocksund, Sweden

I. Tempo moderato, sempre un poco rubato

Track length7:17

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II. Allegro vivace

Track length2:50

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III. Poco adagio

Track length8:11

$1.50

$2.60

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IV. Presto

Track length6:30

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

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After the harmonic and technical audacities of his Fourth String Quartet, Wilhelm Stenhammar evidently felt the need to explore other paths. Thus, in the Fifth Quartet, he makes a new beginning, as indicated by the title ‘Serenade’ that he uses in the autograph score, placing the work in a world of apparent lightheartedness, and even ironic detachment. Unusually for the composer, the primary focus of the work is on the slow second movement, the Ballata. This is based on a song that Stenhammar had learned as a child: the tragicomical ballad of the knight Finn Komfusenfej, whose wooing of a noble maiden proves highly complicated – and in the end fatal. Wide-ranging both in substance and in musical character, the Ballata is framed by three briefer movements which all in different ways play with elements of the quartets of Viennese Classicism, by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Stenhammar thus distances himself from late-Romantic conventions – a development which is carried even further in his sixth and final work in the genre. Here ‘Romantic’ melodies and hovering Impressionist sonorities confront each other and are ultimately synthesized to form a single sound world, while Stenhammar’s extensive studies of counterpoint enable him to achieve a truly democratic four-part texture. On this second disc of the Stenhammar Quartet’s survey, these two late works frame a world première recording, namely that of the Quartet in F minor which Stenhammar completed in 1897, but withdrew after a successful first performance in 1898. While describing the quartet’s middle movements as ‘fresh and joyful’, Stenhammar expressed severe doubts regarding the final movement and for a long time harboured the idea of replacing it, before finally giving up on the work. The first modern performance of the quartet took place in 2001, and now the Stenhammar Quartet is offering a wider audience the opportunity to judge for itself.

Reviews

January 2014

A charming and repeatable release where No. 6, especially, deserves to be better known.

16th December 2013

There is no doubting that the Stenhammars have set the bar high in this repertoire, their musicality informing every bar of the music. They have obviously lived with these works and have a sense of shared purpose. The music feels as if it is freshly composed...Anyone with an interest in Nordic chamber music, could do no better than explore these interesting works.

Stenhammar: String Quartets Volume 2

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