More Rembrandt than Hals

Dvorak: Piano Quartets no. 1, op. 23, and no. 2, op. 87

The Busch Trio received very positive reviews for the first disc in their projected complete Dvorak chamber music with piano series, a piano trio disc released on Alpha Classics in 2016. Now comes a recording of less familiar but still quite marvellous Dvorak: his two piano quartets. Miguel da Silva, the violist from the Ysaÿe Quartet, fits in very well with his younger colleagues. The youthful first quartet could have perhaps used a somewhat lighter touch, but the mature second work, a true masterpiece, is a great fit for the dark, Brahmsian way these musicians have of playing Dvorak. Torn between the bucolic and the cosmopolitan, Dvorak puts his somewhat protean music out there, and musicians have the lovely opportunity of filling in much of their own emotional content. In this instance we have a pretty sophisticated, dramatic interpretation more in the style of a brooding Rembrandt than Frans Hals celebrating life's pleasures. Even with perhaps too much light and shade, I enjoyed this interpretation a great deal.

This disc will be released on September 22, 2017.

Style, authenticity and tradition

In his especially perceptive liner notes to this new Busch Trio Dvorak disc from Alpha, Jan Smaczny talks about the composer being pulled by two opposite forces: the folkloric music of Bohemia and the Austro-German style of Brahms and his circle. This dynamic of nationalism versus trans-national style can be seen in many other composers: Villa-Lobos, for example, navigated between the modernism of Paris and the particularly Brazilian melding of folkoric traditions. Similarly, Aaron Copland's music saw Americana struggling with that same Parisian style, and Vaughan Williams was in the middle of a tug-of-war between Ravel and English Folk Song. But whether acknowledging Brahms' musical mentorship and personal friendship, or harking back to his roots, Dvorak was always authentic, and his music speaks in his own voice. The young musicians of the Busch Trio have caught that voice in the manner of a great actor creating a historic figure, with technical assurance and style.



They also are playing in the tradition of a great musician, their namesake Adolf Busch. This is about more than just the fact that violinist Mathieu van Bellen plays Adolf Busch’s own 1783 Guadagnini violin; rather the group has the same lean and brilliant way of attacking the great music of 19th century Europe.



From the liner notes: