Infinite Voyage – Berg: String Quartet, Op. 3; Chausson: Chanson perpétuelle*; Hindemith: Melancholie, Op. 13*; Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 in F minor
*Barbara Hannigan (soprano); Emerson String Quartet
Alpha Classics ALPHA1000 72:55 mins
Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet adds a solo soprano voice in the last two of its four movements. This presents an interesting challenge in finding works to programme alongside it, and Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson Quartet have come up with quality material – a musical ‘Infinite Voyage’, inspired by a line from the concluding Stefan George setting in Schoenberg’s quartet, ‘l feel air from another planet’. Hindemith’s song-cycle Melancholie for soprano and string quartet was composed in 1918, in a mildly modernist idiom that’s both searching and appealing. Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle adds a piano for its poetic portrayal of lovelorn would-be suicide. And Berg’s String Quartet Op.3 of 1905, written three years before Schoenberg’s masterwork, explores a similar post-Romantic world of harmony and expression.
The result is a programme whose musical demands, however, are not always convincingly met. Hannigan is a remarkable artist in her unique way, and it’s down to personal taste whether you find her non-vibrato-to-vibrato way of delivering one individual note after another vividly expressive, or a relentless mannerism. While the mournful emotional world of Hindemith’s cycle is tellingly conveyed, this doesn’t quite happen in Chausson’s setting. Berg’s Quartet was recorded at a different time and location from the other works, and an element of dryness in the recorded sound feels at odds with the music’s hyper-intense soundworld. Much the finest experience comes in Schoenberg’s Quartet, where the Emerson Quartet’s playing masterfully combines forensic technical precision and expressive warmth. And Hannigan’s identification with Schoenberg’s extraordinary and exploratory music is complete and memorable. Malcolm Hayes