Unless I’ve missed something, this is the first recorded performance of the Magnard Quartet since the Artis Quartet’s tilt at it nearly two decades ago...

Unless I’ve missed something, this is the first recorded performance of the Magnard Quartet since the Artis Quartet’s tilt at it nearly two decades ago (Accord 220 602). A reading by the estimable Via Nova Quartet may have been offered about the same time, but seems never to have been available domestically. Composed over 1902–03—between Guercoeur and the Hymne à Vénus—and similar in appeal to the symphonies, the Quartet offers a propulsive, substantial first movement, a briskly bracing Sérénade, an extended movement in his familiar funèbre vein, and a frolicsome finale of Danses. Of Magnard’s 21 extant works this is the most difficult to know, by virtue of its compactness, and the one, once known, one may well come to love the best. Which is to say that you will want this more than passable performance. On the other hand, Fauré’s Quartet, his final work, does not lack for recorded performances, though most—the Ysaÿe’s included—run aground on the shoals of stylistic incomprehension. For both composers tautness is all, which puts them immediately at odds with the Ysaÿe’s kinder, gentler, nuance-rife readings. Chez Fauré, this approach clutters his austerity and dims its slow flare of radiance in an effusive mushiness. Magnard is more resistant but does not wholly escape blunting. His abruptness—his notorious brusquerie—was not merely a gesture of concision but a coup de théâtre, a call to order, a demand to listen. It is a closely argued work, and to occlude its fleet directness is to labor its argument. Still, there is enough of the essential Magnard here to make an acceptable introduction—while tracking down the Artis Quartet’s more incisively revelatory performance, lobbying for a reissue of the Via Nova, and pressing for other ensembles to essay it. For idiomatic Fauré, one may have to go back to the 1935 Pro Arte Quartet (Biddulph LAB 105), the Loewenguth Quartet (in an LP collection of French string quartets for Vox, SVBX 670), or—by default—the Miami Quartet as the best among recent issues (Conifer 75605 51291 2). Aeon’s sound is immediate and detailed within a spacious aural frame. With reservations noted, recommended.

Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE