Artis-Quartett Wien
This disc features three works for string quartet written within a
thirty-year period by composers whose musical careers were either fractured or
prematurely terminated by the ravages of war. Each of these composers vehemently
denounced and opposed such military conflicts; and each was affected by and
reacted to them in different ways.
The Vienna-born violinist Fritz Kreisler joined the Austrian army at the outbreak of the First World War. Mentally and
physically scarred by his experiences, he sought refuge in the USA. His String
Quartet in A minor clearly reflects those years of conflict and the period
immediately thereafter.
Alexander Zemlinsky remained in Prague during the First
World War; but, having moved to Berlin in 1923, he was forced to leave Germany a
decade later. His early String Quartet in E minor was rejected when he presented
it for consideration for performance at Vienna's Tonkünstlerverein in 1893 and
he suppressed it thereafter; the manuscript was preserved in the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC, and the work eventually appeared in print only in
1997.
Erwin Schulhoff survived active service in the Austrian army throughout
the First World War but returned a changed man with a new political and musical
orientation. He turned to the leftist musical avant-garde in Germany and began
to cultivate various contemporary musical styles, including Expressionism,
Neoclassicism, Dadaism, South American dance and jazz. The Five Pieces form a
suite of dances they reflect Schulhoff's cosmopolitan background.