Martinu: Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola (Duo No. 1), H. 313

When the Emerson String Quartet releases an album, one’s expectation of excellence isn’t met – it’s exceeded. The Emersons’ way with Czech chamber music on this new recording further burnishes a lustrous reputation. The Emersons perform with the same benchmark intensity, integrity, energy, and commitment demonstrated since its formation in 1976. It now brings these qualities to the first two of Janácek’s String Quartets and 3 Madrigals for violin and viola by Martinu. Intimate Letters (Quartet no. 2) is based on Janácek’s letters to his muse, Kamila Stösslová, whom he promised that “our life is going to be in it”.

In their first recording as a duo, violinist Thomas Zehetmair and violist Ruth Killius take the listener on a stunning tour of modern music, playing works by Bartók, Holliger, Scelsi, Martinů, Skalkottas, Rainer Killius, Johannes Nied and Peter Maxwell Davies. “The instruments dazzle, dance and declaim, play games with one another,” remarks Paul Griffiths in the liner notes.

The husband and wife team who comprise half of the multi-award winning Zehetmair Quartet have been playing this material as part of their recital work for several years already, with great success. These pieces formed the core of their performance at ECM’s 40th anniversary festival in Mannheim – a concert singled out by critics as a highlight of the event – and they perform music from Manto and Madrigal in London in early April. On this recording, the relationships between the pieces and between the instruments are explored in compositions that range from Scelsi’s dissonant and microtonal journey toward the mystic core of music making, with Killius as singer as well as viola soloist to duo pieces that incorporate elements, archaic or playful, from regional folk music. There is very early Bartók here, and music of Schoenberg’s sole Greek pupil Skalkottas. There are three sketches by Heinz Holliger, written especially for Zehetmair and Killius, playful madrigals by Martinů, and an encore provided by the performers’ friend Johannes Nied.

Thomas Zehetmair, virtuoso violinist, conductor, and musical director of the Northen Sinfonia, has recorded Holliger’s Violin Concerto for ECM and his solo discs of Ysaÿe and Paginini won great critical acclaim. He and Ruth Killius co-founded the Zehetmair Quartet in 1994. Their Schumann Quartets album was Gramophone’s Record of the Year in 2003 and the recent disc of Hindemith and Bartók was awarded the Diapason d'Or de l'Année.

While Bohuslav Martinu dedicated himself to the violin and its brilliant tone from the very beginning of his oeuvre, the viola doesn’t appear until his later years, (all of the pieces on this album dating from the period 1947–59). It is as if he found in the viola, with its dark timbres, its ability to be harsh and rhythmic as well as sweet and lyrical, an instrument to express his feelings and sufferings in the last part of his life.

A Mozartian joy and temperament flash through the lyrical moods, nostalgia and “Czech” fervor of the folk-music motives, like reminders of his unbridled youth through memories of the homeland to which he was no longer able to return. The transparent structure of the Three Madrigals and Duet No. 2 gives way to the ardent song of the Sonata for Viola, while in the Chamber Music the viola is just a gossamer strand in the broad color palette of the combinations of all the instruments in the sextet.

Violist Alexander Besa is an excellent soloist, chamber player and orchestral musician (Camerata Bern et al.) with a number of recordings and awards to his name. The album features, without exaggeration, the best Czech musicians of the younger generation.

The lyrical viola, dark and brilliant, joyful and mournful in the later works of Bohuslav Martinu.