Ignace Strasfogel

Streichquartett Nr. 1

Ignace Strasfogel (1909 - 1994), a master student of Franz Schreker and Leonid Kreutzer, the youngest student at the Berlin Hochschule and the youngest recipient of the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize of the Weimar Republic, made a career as a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after his emigration in 1934. His String Quartet No. 1, probably written in 1927 as the final work of his studies with Schreker, is an early work of the highest perfection. In the first of the two movements, grotesque-capricious scenarios are revitalized by contrapuntal artistry. The second, non less polypohnic, is a widely branched scherzo with an elegiac trio section. Just as striking is the harmony: With individually shaping of all four parts, all facets up to polytonality and complete detachment from functional tonality are explored - in a certain affinity with the musical language of Alban Berg, not without tongue-in-cheek references to the neoclassicism of the 1920s. A just as original as important contribution to the quartet repertoire of the early twentieth century.