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I've been generally favorable in my reviews to date of music by Felix Weingartner (1863-1942; the CD case back cover has incorrectly listed his birthdate as 1893, continuing a mistake made on previous issues in this series). Felix Weingartner: Symphony No. 1; König Lear [Hybrid SACD], Weingartner: Sextet & Octet,Weingartner: String Quartets Vol. 1, the latter being the first in this series of Weingartner's quartets played by the Sarastro Quartet. But I can't be terribly positive about this issue for a number of reasons. First, there is some scrappy and/or excruciatingly out of tune playing, particularly in the String Quintet, the second work on the disc, and second, the music itself strikes me as rather pedestrian. The Quartet No. 5 has all the hallmarks of a late Romantic, post-Wagnerian work but somehow it doesn't hold together as a whole. There are some lovely, interesting things in it, like the Andante and the Scherzo with its almost Mahlerian trio section. But the thematic material is too often undistinguished.

As for the Quintet -- a second viola is the fifth instrument -- it strikes me as heavy-handed and muddy in too many places as well as being not particularly striking in its themes. There is no question that Weingartner is a skilled craftsman but he is let down by the material itself.

I'm glad I've added this disc to my Weingartner collection, but I suspect I will not be coming back to it very often; rather I'll be reaching for its companion that contains the Quartets Nos. 1 & 3. I believe there will be yet another disc in the series, as Weingartner wrote, I think, five quartets; interestingly the Grove's lists three in one place and five in another.

dank aan originele poster!