Mandelring Quartet, Roland Glassl: Dvořák

The Strad Issue: August 2025

Description: Enterprising programming as a favourite quartet rubs shoulders with a rarity

Musicians: Mandelring Quartet, Roland Glassl (viola)

Works: Dvořák: String Quartet no.12 ‘American’; String Quintet no.3; Eight Humoresques (arr. Eichhorn)

Catalogue number: AUDITE AUDITE97828

The quartet and quintet here – Dvořák’s opp.96 and 97 – make such a logical and attractive couple that it’s surprising they aren’t seen walking out together more often. The ‘American’ Quartet is easily the most popular of all the composer’s works in the genre. Op.97 is the Third String Quintet, also occasionally known as the ‘American’, although the legacy of the Spirituals Dvořák heard during his Iowa sojourn is less in evidence than in the quartet, and the finale has its feet planted firmly in his native Bohemia.

The quintet should certainly be better known than it is – but then, the same could be said about whole swathes of Dvořák’s chamber output. The Mandelring Quartet, joined by Roland Glassl, bring an earthy, slightly grainy edge to the faster movements but are equally responsive to the lyricism of the slow movement’s variations. The same is true of the quartet: groups such as the Takács and the Emerson may convey a greater suavity, but only occasionally is there the sense of effects being needlessly forced.

The only real caveat might be the lack of an exposition repeat in the quintet’s first movement: it feels needed, although its omission leaves just enough space for Matthias Eichhorn’s arrangements of eight late piano Humoresques (no.7 will bring a smile of recognition) – so idiomatically transferred that you’d barely believe Dvořák hadn’t conceived them for quartet all along.

DAVID THREASHER