Brodsky Quartet - Petits Fours: Favourite Encores (2012)

Chandos Records signed an exclusive contract with the Brodsky Quartet in time for the celebrations of its fortieth anniversary in 2012. Formed in 1972, the Brodsky Quartet quickly emerged at the forefront of the international chamber music scene. It has performed more than 2000 concerts and made more than fifty highly acclaimed recordings. This is the Quartet’s first release on Chandos, and includes many of the encores it has performed over the years, notable for their novelty and diverse range of styles and emotions. All the pieces have been arranged by past or current members of the Quartet, and together form an entertaining and original collection.

The Quartet has enjoyed many successful collaborations over the years, and regularly works with artists such as Elvis Costello, Sting, Anne Sofie von Otter, Martin Roscoe, Michael Collins, Tunde Jegede, Dawn Upshaw, and Björk. Its boundless energy and tremendous enthusiasm have led it in many artistic directions, from the classic quartet repertoire of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky, to the very cutting edge of contemporary music and styles. Its passion to embrace ‘all good music’ has been the driving force behind its success and has kept its approach fresh and its enthusiasm high since its formation.

Composer: Pablo de Sarasate, Manuel de Falla, Sir Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvorák…
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet

Reviews: Here’s a compilation that every lover of string quartet music—its sound and the sensuous, full-bodied playing style characteristic of the great 20th century string recitalists—will enjoy. The program consists entirely of arrangements—all except one are first recordings—by the Brodsky Quartet of works originally for violin and piano, voice and piano, piano solo, and in one case (Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2”) for orchestra, the group’s intention being to create fresh, relatively short, yet musically worthy encore pieces.

Most of the music will be familiar—Sarasate’s Zapateado; three of Elgar’s violin/piano parlor pieces; Dvorák’s Humoresque; Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song; Schumann’s Träumerei; Debussy’s Beau soir; Prokofiev’s “March” from The Love for Three Oranges; and many others—but the arrangements (most of them by Brodsky violist Paul Cassidy) bring them new life, in almost every case truly re-imagining the music for a quartet rather than just following a melody/accompaniment formula. Occasionally the arrangements include a piano, and in one of the disc’s highlights—Kreisler’s Caprice viennois—a viola joins the quartet.

The playing is first-rate, the interpretations, well, this group owns these pieces after all!, and the sound is very favorable to the music and the ensemble. Usually this kind of program amounts to an incompatible hodge-podge, drawn from various times and places; but this was recorded at one session, and the music is not just a collection of “show-off” pieces but rather offers something of substance as well, which not only will make you smile but will bring you back many times.

Tracklisting:

1. Spanish Dances (2) for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 by Pablo de Sarasate
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1880
Notes: The two pieces are titled "Playera" and "Zapateado".

2. Siete canciones populares españolas: 7. Polo by Manuel de Falla
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Modern
Written: 1914; Spain

3. Siete canciones populares españolas: 5. Nana by Manuel de Falla
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Modern
Written: 1914; Spain

4. La capricieuse, Op. 17 by Sir Edward Elgar
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1891; England

5. Chanson de nuit, Op. 15 no 1 by Sir Edward Elgar
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1897; England

6. Chanson de matin, Op. 15 no 2 by Sir Edward Elgar
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1897; England

7. Humoresque in F sharp major, B 138 by Antonín Dvorák
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1884

8. Album für die Jugend, Op. 68: no 30, Molto lento by Robert Schumann
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1848; Germany

9. Caprice viennois, Op. 2 by Fritz Kreisler
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: Austria

10. Songs (6), Op. 34: no 2, Auf Flügeln des Gesanges by Felix Mendelssohn
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1836; Germany

11. Triakontameron: no 11, Alt Wien by Leopold Godowsky
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1920; USA

12. Kinderszenen, Op. 15: no 7, Träumerei by Robert Schumann
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1838; Germany

13. Kinderszenen, Op. 15: no 2, Curiose Geschichte by Robert Schumann
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1838; Germany

14. Kinderszenen, Op. 15: no 1, Von fremden Ländern und Menschen by Robert Schumann
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: Romantic
Written: 1838; Germany

15. Valses nobles et sentimentales: no 6 in C major, Vif by Maurice Ravel
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1911; France

16. Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major: 2nd movement, Blues by Maurice Ravel
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1923-1927; France

17. Love for Three Oranges: March, Op. 33b no 1 by Sergei Prokofiev
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1922; Paris, France

18. Suite for Jazz Orchestra no 2, Op. 50b: Waltz no 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1938

19. Beau soir by Claude Debussy
Orchestra/Ensemble: Brodsky String Quartet
Period: 20th Century
Written: circa 1880; France


Thanks to the original releaser