A "new" string quartet by Janáček
Using techniques from Janáček's original string quartets, Kryštof Mařatka has conquered the wind sextet "Mládí / The Youth" for a new instrumentation.
The sextet was composed in 1924 for Janáček's 70th birthday Mládí as a suite in the rare instrumentation for flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, horn and bassoon. He added the bass clarinet to the classical wind quintet, which is strongly rooted in Czech music. Although the bass clarinet has a similar range to the bassoon, it is capable of a very idiosyncratic colorfulness, oscillating between noisy roughness and mysterious murmuring, and here it brings an even darker foundation to the work. The registers are now divided into two balanced descant, middle and low registers. The strong character of the individual instruments, with their oscillating tonal oscillations in the transitional areas of the registers, contribute greatly to the fascination of this work, which repeatedly recalls the opening passages of Sacre du Printemps where the same instruments dominate.
Transferring this score into the rather monochrome world of the string quartet with its homogeneous sound is a risk, as the arranger, the composer Kryštof Mařatka, notes self-critically. It is fair to say that this unusual but excellently crafted work is a new piece, which in turn has much in common with Janáček and his original string quartets. The first quartet, Kreutzer Sonata, was created in 1923 before Mládíthe second shortly before Janáček's death. In both, he uses instrumental and musical techniques that are unparalleled by other composers and make these works icons of expressionist classical modernism. It goes without saying that Mařatka studied these scores thoroughly and even took the liberty of incorporating some of the techniques he found into his string arrangement, even though the source material for wind instruments naturally does not contain them. This freedom of transformation may be criticized, but it makes it possible to bring the piece into the aesthetic proximity of the string quartets and to give it an originality that is modelled on Janáček. Fortunately, such experiments are no longer frowned upon as a matter of principle today, adding a new "little" family member to the canon of Janáček's quartets that is well worth hearing.
Leoš Janáček: Mládí / The Youth, arranged for string quartet by Kryštof Mařatka; parts, BA 11543, € 19.95; study score, TP 521, € 19.95; Bärenreiter, Prague 2017
