Friedrich Gernsheim: String Quartets, Vol. 2 – Diogenes Quartet

It is above all the genre of the string quartet in which Gernsheim has earned great merit with his new ideas. The Diogenes Quartet interpreted the first and third quartets on Vol. 1 of our complete recording. FonoForum attested that the Diogenes Quartet plays this music “almost ideally. In this interpretation, the music acquires a warmth of feeling that never slips into kitschy sentimentality. This is a balancing act that the quartet manages as a matter of course: unobtrusively demanding”. (FonoForum 9/2019) On Vol. 2, the quartet devotes itself to the String Quartet op. 83 as well as the String Quintet op. 89. His Quartet op.83 was first published in print in 1911 by the publisher N. Simrock, but unlike Gernsheim’s other chamber music works, only in parts without a score. It was first performed by the Klingler Quartet. Karl Klingler was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, for a time a member of the Joachim Quartet and later its successor at the Berlin Musikhochschule, and is also the dedicatee of the work. The movements show on the one hand Gernsheim’s melodic qualities and at the same time the disjointedness of his late style. Gernsheim usually does not linger long on a melodic idea; the movement is characterised by short sections from which small motifs always develop further. The whole is accompanied by harmonic regressions, an extensive chromaticism and a play with major-minor shadings. Yet Gernsheim always remains rooted in the tonal tradition, but has already moved quite a bit away from the stylistics of his late friend Brahms. His Quintet op.89 was premiered in March 1916 while the composer was still alive, but was never printed. Everything is very chromatic to the limits of the diatonic, but not beyond, and is somewhat reminiscent of Max Reger’s chamber music. Gernsheim takes the small-scale, chromatic, dynamic and motivic contrasts and outbursts to an even greater extreme than in his last string quartet. The movement shows such a great variety of ideas, as if Gernsheim had suspected that it was to be his last chamber music work and therefore wanted to pack everything in once more.

Reviews

“These are narratives that are just about held together by the strictness of the classical four-movement form, but offer the listener surprises at all times. The flow of ideas is always natural, nothing seems arbitrary or against the grain – as is often the case with Max Reger.the sometimes ludicrous modulations carry and colour the decidedly songful motif material in the most beautiful way. Both the quartet and the quintet – in Schubert scoring with 2 cellos – begin deliberately sweet and harmless, only to extend claws and paws in the further development.so let yourself be surprised!…The Diogenes Quartet is in absolute top form in this recording. Each phrase is carefully illuminated and brought to its climax. The technically highly demanding parts in both works (chromatic runs in pp track 2) are performed with absolute, almost casual assurance…Conclusion: rediscovery of two wonderful, incredibly multi-faceted works of the late Romantic period. Clearly recommended.” (Klassik heute)