Mandelring Quartett, Gunter Teuffel - Janáček: Complete String Quartets (2010) [SACD]

Both string quartets from the late period of the Moravian composer Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) form – alongside works by Schoenberg, Berg and Zemlinsky – pinnacles of modern chamber music between the world wars. Janáček composed the quartets in 1923 and 1928 respectively and gave them revealing sobriquets. The title “Kreutzer Sonata” for the first quartet refers to a novella by Leo Tolstoy in which the emotional power of music is held responsible for a matrimonial drama. If this quartet is secretly addressed to Kamila Stösslová, the object of Janáček’s adoration in his later life, then the sobriquet of the second quartet (“Intimate Letters”) refers rather openly to the same addressee. The composer reinforced this amorous subtext by using an instrument which has love in its name.

“The whole thing will be held together by a special instrument”, Janáček wrote, “it is called viola d’amour – viola of love.” After a long period of dormancy, the baroque viola d’amore was revived at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Janáček was fascinated by the silvery sound of the richly decorated instrument in the viola register. Unfortunately, for practical reasons he had to dispense with the viola d’amore and adapt the work for an ordinary viola. For this recording, Gunter Teuffel (viola d’amore) and the Mandelring Quartet have reconstructed the original setting, offering Janáček’s second string quartet in both versions, for viola as well as viola d’amore.