Few composers are associated so strongly with a single genre as Hugo Wolf, known during his lifetime and to posterity almost solely as a composer of lieder. This fine release from the adventurous CPO label collects Wolf's compositions for string quartet, revealing a facet of the composer that will be of interest to Wolf aficionados and may surprise many who would pigeonhole him as a master of smaller forms.
The major work here is Wolf's String Quartet, begun in 1879 when the composer was still a teenager, and completed in 1884--but not performed until 1903, shortly before Wolf's death. More than 45 minutes long, this is a quartet of large-scale proportions and ambitions. The heated, sometimes overwrought emotions conveyed here, especially the tumultuous first movement, mark the quartet as a particularly feverish document of late romanticism, and Wolf's debt to Wagner is clearly heard in the slow movement, which adopts the static, glacial atmosphere of the 'Lohengrin' Prelude.
Wolf's best-known work aside from his lieder, the 'Italian Serenade' is also included here, contrasting dramatically with the Quartet in its lighter tone and infectious melodies. Throughout the program, the Auryn Quartet plays with virtuosity and total sympathy for the intense passions of Wolf's music.
