Three String Quartets: Haydn Jespersen and Britten

The raison d’être of this CD is quite simple, but terribly relevant. In 2018, composer Hanne Tofte Jespersen was commissioned to write a string quartet for the chamber music society BRAGE. The idea was that the new work would major on an historical theme. The resulting composition was to be seen in context with Haydn’s late D minor Quartet dating from 1797, and Benjamin Britten’s First Quartet completed in 1941. 

History was to catch up. Jespersen’s Quartet was completed during the first major lockdown caused by Covid-19, when all live musical activities were suspended. It was eventually premiered during November 2020, shortly before the next lockdown. Fast forward to February/May 2022, when this present album was recorded, with Covid in retreat, but when Europe was engaged in the most serious and extensive war since 1945. As the liner notes state, “the music[al] works of this project express both unrest, threat, hope, and even a vision of peace.”

The scholar H.C. Robbins Landon once noted that Haydn’s String Quartet, op.76, No.2 in D minor “Quinten-Quartett” is “one of the most serious, learned and intellectually formidable works that [Haydn] ever wrote.” It has been suggested that the Andante is a little lightweight, when heard against the other three movements. It could just be that Haydn was giving the listener a rest before the more significant material that follows. The Menuetto, which is sometimes called the Witches Minuet, is harsh and acerbic. The first and second violins and the viola and cello play in open octaves and in canon at about a bar’s interval, reminiscing on the opening movement. The trio section has wild “stamping rhythms,” and rapid alteration between D major and minor. The finale is pure Gypsy/Hungarian music, and is once again based on a melodic interval of the fifth, this time A-E. It is a tour de force that displays slides, bagpipe drones and even, they say, a donkey braying! I felt that the present ensemble explored the variety of this quartet with aplomb and enthusiasm.

The new String Quartet by Hanne Tofte Jespersen is described by the liner notes as having “Threads back in time” as its “key concept.” As a student, she sang in a Danish choir which gave a performance of Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia (1941-42) which had a text by W.H. Auden. This choral piece then led her to his String Quartet No.1, which is contemporaneous to St Cecilia. In 2020, she took this “thread” and took some motifs from the Haydn Quartet, op.76 no.2 and created a new work that was inspired by the “classical quartet tradition” of which Haydn is deemed to be the “Father,” and a reminiscence of her “fascination” for the experimental music of Benjamin Britten. Despite a detailed, somewhat poetic, technical exposition of the Quartet provided in the liner notes, this balance, this equilibrium between classical and innovative is all the listener needs to bring to the party. Here are found lyrical, themes counterpoised with polytonality, clusters and a freedom of rhythmic construction. There is also an overall progress, I think, from unrest to tranquillity, however, there are moments of stress and repose throughout the piece. Overall, I found the new quartet both satisfying and approachable.

Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No.1 in D major, op.25 was written in the United States. Currently, the composer and his partner Peter Pears were staying in San Diego, California, which was about as far away from the war in Europe as possible. The quartet was a commission from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. It was premiered in Los Angeles on 21 September 1941.

David Truslove, in a programme note, gives an ideal summary: “It is almost as if memories of Britten’s native Suffolk coast and the vigour of California have become distilled in the Quartet’s oppositional landscape.” After the remarkable introduction which counterpoints a high pitched “molto vibrato” motif for the violins and viola and pizzicato chords and arpeggios of the cello, the toccata-like Allegro vivo propels the music in an almost urban splash. Is the composer reminiscing about his beloved Aldeburgh, and at the same time being overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of city life? The Scherzo, nodding to Beethoven, is humorous and witty, rather than profound: it is played here with great energy and with caustic tone. The listener is inevitably reminded of the “moonlight music” from Peter Grimes in the long slow movement. This nocturne is the emotional heart of the Quartet. The vivacious finale ties into the first work heard on this CD: it is not possible to listen to this movement without recognising at least a hat tip to Papa Haydn. It is full of the metropolitan pizzazz that is the antitheses of the marshes and reed beds around Snape. The performance by the assembled instrumentalists is ideal, and succeeds in presenting “the powerful, dramatic contrasts” between, and sometimes within, the four movements.

The genuinely helpful liner notes are printed in Danish and English. They include a brief overview of the genesis of the project, short notes about all three quartets, a more detailed study of the new work by Hanne Tofte Jespersen and an essay contextualising the “Historical Scope of 1790-2020,” as well as short biographies of the performers and Hanne Tofte Jespersen.

As a concept album – Times of Unrest, it succeeded less well than if it has been entitled Threads back in Time. Historically, all ages seem to be “Ages of Turmoil,” however, I get the point that this album does reflect the traumatic effect of Covid.19, and latterly the war in Ukraine.

Track Listing:
Times of Unrest
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet, op.76, No.2 in D minor “Quinten-quartett” (1797)
Hanne Tofte Jespersen (b.1956)
String Quartet No.1 “Urolige Tider” (2020)
Benjamin Britten (1913-76)
String Quartet No.1 in D major, op.25 (1941)
Kirstine Schneider (violin), Mads Haugsted Hansen (violin), Daniel Eklund (viola), Lea Brøndal (cello).
rec. 19-20 February 2022, (Jespersen), 22-23 May 2022, (Britten), Sankt Laurentii Kirke, Roskilde, Denmark; 30-31 May 2022, Hørsholm Sognegård, Denmark (Haydn)
DANACORD DACOCD 945

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.