Search - David Pettit, Angela Malsbury :: Prokofiev: String Quartets, Overture on Hebrew Themes / Coull Quartet

Prokofiev by the Coull--Good Performances, Fine Sound

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 07/25/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"While Prokofiev has contributed many masterworks to the repertoire, these string quartets probably don't top anybody's list of the finest examples written in the 20th century. However, No. 2 especially is a real charmer, with memorable melodies and first-rate development of same. The string quartets came at a time when Prokofiev was searching for a more popular idiom to replace the hard-as-nails modernism he worked in throughout the 1920s. He succeeded admirably in the Second Quartet, subtitled "Kabardinian" because it is based on melodies from the Kabarda region of Russia, where Prokofiev had been evacuated during the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941. Along with music of a more overtly patriotic nature, the Symphonic Suite and parts of "War and Peace," Prokofiev produced a quartet that is a classic of musical anthropology in the vein of Bartok. A shame it isn't heard more often in concert. Oh, well, here it on disc is in a fine rendition by a quartet that is well known in England, the Coull Quartet. I can imagine this music being played with a bit more fire, and indeed the Aurora Quartet on Naxos, from what I have heard of its performance, is more impetuous in its approach to both quartets.



However, the Coull's more civilized approach wears well with repeated hearings, including the performance of the Quartet No. 1. This work is burdened by Prokofiev's decision to end with a slow movement--OK for Shostakovich, apparently, who has his rabid admirers despite what in other composers would be called missteps or misjudgments. And I guess it doesn't matter that Prokofiev's slow finale has the lovely spookiness of the Russian master's best symphonic slow movements. I find the Coull Quartet especially moving here, playing with poignancy and beauty of tone.



The disc also includes a lively rendition of Prokofiev's better-known "Overture on Hebrew Themes." Coming after the Second Quartet, its clever use of native materials shows clear connections with the later work. As with the quartets, the Overture is afforded fine, full sound with a pleasing sense of ambience by the Hyperion engineers. At mid-price, this disc is something of a bargain."