ヴォーン・ウィリアムズ: 弦楽四重奏曲全集

ヴォーン・ウィリアムズの全ての弦楽四重奏曲を収録したアルバム。演奏するヴェルディ四重奏団はヴァイオリニストのスザンネ・ラーベンシュラークを中心に1985年に創設されたアンサンブル。世界各地の音楽祭などで演奏した他、シューベルト、ブラームスや、エルンスト・トッホの弦楽四重奏曲全曲の録音などで高く評価され、30年以上にわたり活躍してきました。今回アンサンブルの解散にあたり、彼らの長年の願いであったヴォーン・ウィリアムズ作品の録音が実現。ドビュッシーの影響が色濃い第1番、最後の室内楽作品となった第2番と、民謡の素材が用いられた初期作品のハ短調の3曲で共感溢れる演奏を聴かせます。
ナクソス・ジャパン

The string quartets of Ralph Vaughan Williams are hardly a major part of his output; the first two are from his student years, and the last one, the String Quartet No. 2 in A minor (the first quartet is unnumbered), was put together partly from music written by the composer for a World War II propaganda film. Nevertheless, the quartets are all of interest to Vaughan Williams fans, for they show aspects of his compositional development. The early String Quartet in C minor has not often been recorded, which may be why this album, with its straightforward, competent performances by the Verdi Quartett, made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2024 (it was recorded in 2017, perhaps with its success making the CPO label regret waiting so long). Both the String Quartet in C minor and the String Quartet No. 1 in G minor reveal traces of the composer to come without being fully mature works. The Andantino movement of the former work is a folkish melody that must have irritated Vaughan Williams teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford, who was trying to steer his student toward Brahms (and the quartet as a whole sounds more like Dvořak than like Brahms, anyhow). Perhaps the most interesting is the String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, composed during Vaughan Williams studies with Ravel and sketching out a lot of the steps by which the former transformed Ravels modal melodies into English pastoralism. It is not full-blown Vaughan Williams yet, but it certainly represents a crucial stage. With fine sound from a WDR studio auditorium in Germany, this recording may fill holes in collections of English music. ~ James Manheim