OUTCAST Matangi Quartet

Schnittke; Silvestrov; Shostakovich
Matangi Quartet
Matangi Music / Pias (2022)

New this month is Matangi Quartet’s selection of Russian and Ukrainian works titled ‘Outcast’.

The ‘Andante’ of Schnittke’s ‘String Quartet No.3’ twists or rather tangles itself around motifs from di Lasso, Beethoven, Bach, and Shostakovich. Shades of darkness, and back again, intertwined tonalities and styles. Schnitte’s ‘Polystylism’ is relentlessly edgy although cleverly bound by a more cohesive rhythmic ‘regularity’. In the second movement, ‘Agitato’, the effect is stunning. Again more darkness than light but emotionally transportive. Distinct to this writer are echoes of violence and pain, purposeful not contrived. ‘Agitato’ “serves as a culmination of the various polystylistic ideas, improved and introduced in various contrasting textures compared to the initial motivic material of movement I…” (Herndon) The final movement ‘Pesante’ is just as spine-tingling via the contrast of tonal dimensions in juxtaposition. Glimmers and echoes of prior exploration are further explored along a tremendous eight-and-a-half-minute journey. As Herndon concludes, “Schnittke’s ability to synthesize and incorporate so many motives in such a detailed and comprehensive manner is what truly distinguishes his craft within the idea of polystylism.”

Photo by Martin

Ukrainian composer Silvestrov’s ‘String Quartet No.1’ offers a gorgeous romantic melodicisation. It is restful and peaceful and due its modernity devoid of sentiment. Silverstrov affects a mostly restrained and unassuming air, even when veering to disjunction and solemnity. Long repetitive phases of shepherd-calls never tire but lull. If landscape is ‘frozen music’ then this is living musical geography. As with much contemporary practice it is a piece of changes of mood. There is, however, a containment of style – often reliant on the ‘calling’ repetition in contrast with Schnittke. To unhinge at close is an extraordinary wind-down-spinning-top effect. “It can be described as a work standing on a threshold between avant-garde and post-avant-garde and… can even be counted among the best quartets of the 20th century.” (Frumkis)

Shostakovich’s ‘String Quartet No.8’ opens with a dark and sombre ‘Largo’. A ‘breathy’ light-but-sure touch in performance gently wavers, to seemingly reflect an almost non-melodic structure: the tenuous ‘touching’ upon form to net air and silence. ‘Allegro Molto’ bursts open with an intense and raw pressure upon the string. This raspy effect is immediately recognisable yet somehow new, that is, infused with a renewed energy. ‘Allegretto’ is again an almost or anti set of variations based upon the simplest of themes. These ‘variations’ between gravity and tenderness dance across the imagination. An appealing stridency conveys an exceptional level of confidence. In turn, to exceed the listener’s expectations of the composition and of the variety of colour.

The next ‘Largo’ (the fourth movement) takes a different path with pleasing harmonic strokes. There is a midway reversal to romanticised idioms which would reassure if not for the premise on which these are based. The final ‘Largo’ is austere and plaintive. And ‘drawn’… in its exacting technique... to then gradually transmute to a sweet vibrato. Mirroring the previous ‘Allegro’ its lone melodic lines end and unend.

‘Outcast’ and outstanding.

– Martin Slidel

Available to purchase here: matangi.nl/products/outcast

Further reading (Herndon, 2018): researchgate.net/publication/337157457

Frumkis quote: en.schott-music.com/shop/streichquartett-nr-1-noq6555.html


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