An adventurous ensemble illuminates another neglected figure
THE STRAD RECOMMENDS
The Strad Issue: June 2025
Description: An adventurous ensemble illuminates another neglected figure
Musicians: Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
Works: Brahms: Piano Quartet no.3. Héritte-Viardot: Piano Quartet no.1 ‘Im Sommer’
Catalogue number: CHANDOS CHAN20329
Here’s a fascinating rediscovery. Louise Héritte-Viardot (1841–1918) was the daughter of the mezzo and composer Pauline Viardot-Garcia and a niece of soprano Maria Malibran, a friend of Clara Schumann’s and herself a composer of remarkable facility and fluency. Naturally (and shamefully) she suffered the slings and arrows that were part and parcel of being a woman pursuing a creative career in the 19th century – a sorry tale recounted in Nicholas Marston’s excellent booklet note – but having married a high-ranking diplomat, she found a niche as a singing teacher at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt.
Héritte-Viardot was born in Paris but, on the evidence of her First Piano Quartet ‘Im Sommer’, her music’s accent lies predominantly along the Vienna–Prague axis. There are hints of Brahms’s influence – she knew him via her association with Clara Schumann – but even more so of Dvořák’s, alongside Robert Schumann’s ‘Prophet Bird’ (from Waldszenen) in the quartet’s second movement, ‘Flies and Butterflies’. This is no pale imitation, though: the voice is at all times individual, the technique rock solid, and the musical imagination entirely of a piece.
The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective here continues its ‘Brahms and Contemporaries’ series with a performance of such authority and commitment that I’m eager to hear it in more of Héritte-Viardot’s music. Coupled with an affectionate but never indulgent performance of Brahms’s C minor Trio (warmly recorded at Potton Hall), this is a highly recommendable album.
DAVID THREASHER
No comments yet