The Mighty Yggdrasil!

Usually a string quartet will name themselves after the surname of their leader or a composer they wish to honor. Others will name it after a location to honor a country, city, or state.
Here we have The Yggdrasil Quartet.

What a great name! The mighty Ash tree of life and death from Norse lore. I would say the quartet's playing lives up to their title, as they give these works a full range of their abilities. They harshly dig in just as soundly as they sweetly romance.

Berwald was a conservative composer, and it shows in these three quartets. Occasionally there will be eyebrow-raising harmonic movement, but generally these are sweet, pastoral works.

The earliest is the most straight sounding to my ears. The second is my personal favorite, even though the third is an almost identical match in terms of style and substance. Berwald tightened everything up in the intervening years, so the latter two are generally more appealing to me.

A review from 2024

Swedish composer Franz Berwald is best known as an early-Romantic, conservative composer who liked to take occasional harmonic jaunts that are somewhat surprising. You can hear this aspect in his three string quartets, but not perhaps as much as the liner notes author would like you to believe.

None of the string quartets are particularly strong of melody, although Berwald gives little snatches of this and that. I think after the first quartet, the composer must have learned economy of music, for the following ones are thankfully much shorter.

String Quartet 2 is perhaps my favorite, for it holds the most ‘surprises’, although judging from these three works, that isn’t what Berwald is out for. Still, I believe it has the strongest ideas and structure which landed the best for me. The third is no slouch, and it bears a striking resemblance to its predecessor, plus an extra movement.

I like the Yggdrasil Quartet in this music, for they relish striking at the music’s extremes when it allows. Otherwise, they have a lovely Romantic sound, and sound delighted to be presenting these works. They are easily the best sounding and most incisive amongst the very few recordings, not to mention all three are collected together on one recording.

Listen on YouTube

Works
String Quartet 1 (32.30)
String Quartet 2 (21.37)
String Quartet 3 (21.47)

Ensemble
Yggdrasil Quartet

Label: BIS
Year: 1996
Total Timing: 75.54

 

Berwald learned much from the early first concerto to the later two.

Best of all, he learned economy, for the first is too long. Otherwise, these are all sweet-sounding quartets, with the rare harmonic twist from Berwald.

Plus, Berwald's three String Quartet all in one place!

 

 

Find more Berwald recordings HERE!