Renewed interest in Donizetti's music is bringing to light lesser-known areas of the composer's output. Many listeners may not be aware, for example, that Donizetti wrote 18 string quartets – mostly between 1818 and 1821 – before he launched his successful career as an opera composer. Thus, the Revolutionary Drawing Room's sympathetic accounts of Quartets Nos. 7 to 9 (part of a complete edition) offer a fascinating insight into the young composer's instrumental practice and dramatic flair.
The programmatic, F minor Quartet (No. 7) was composed on the occasion of the death of Marchese Giuseppi Terzi in 1819, and the Revolutionary Drawing Room's thoroughly committed performance of it vividly portrays Terzi's illness and death, his wife's despair and, finally, the grave solemnity of Terzi's funeral. Like the F minor Quartet, the D minor Quartet (No. 9) highlights Donizetti's theatrical response to minor mode, with its ardently impassioned, tragic opening movement and poignantly dissonant slow movement.
Donizetti's approach to form and harmonic design is often unadventurous, even banal; but his fertile melodic invention and delightfully varied chamber textures animate all three works on this disc. Try the high-spirited B flat Quartet (No. 8) where Donizetti's scoring has some charming touches, such as the cello pizzicato scales in the Larghetto, or the vivacious exchanges between upper and lower strings in the finale. Throughout this issue, the Revolutionary Drawing Room's tautly sprung, beautifully transparent ensemble highlights the fluent eloquence of Donizetti's chamber style and, although these are not especially profound pieces, they do provide a rewarding opportunity to explore the composer's domestic music. R1 '9510064'