The Leonkoro Quartet, founded in Berlin in 2019, has made a striking impression on the UK classical scene, having won first prize and nine special awards at the 2022 Wigmore Hall international string quartet competition. Their latest album, Out of Vienna, delves into the works of three composers who defined the cutting edge of music in the Austrian capital before and after the Great War.
The quartet's account of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite is particularly compelling. Written as a passionate outpouring to his mistress, the piece ranges from the swooning Andante Amoroso to the tiptoeing Allegro Misterioso and the positively coital Presto Delirando. The playing is unflinching, seething with imaginative detail and capturing the moody sensuality of this intense, intricate music.
Anton Webern's Five Pieces from 1909, a memorial to his mother, were effectively the first atonal string quartet. The quartet's interpretation astonishes with its maturity and expressivity, bringing out the composer's dynamic variety and breadth of imagination. The Langsamer Satz, from four years earlier, is the most overtly romantic work Webern ever wrote, a musical case of the road not taken.
Between these works, the quartet offers Erwin Schulhoff's Five Pieces as a palate cleanser. This quirky suite runs the gamut from a slyly sent-up Viennese waltz to a louche Argentine tango, reflecting the Czech-born composer's absurdist phase. The playing and recorded sound are top-tier throughout, making this album a blazing exploration of Viennese modernism.
