During the first fifteen years of the 20th century, Leó Weiner (1885-1960) was widely regarded as a "wunderkind", winning virtually all of the important Hungarian and Austrian competitions between 1903 and 1908. Weiner was born in Budapest and entered the Budapest Academy of Music at the age of 16, where he studied composition with Hans Koessler. His rise was meteoric, and Critics dubbed him the "Hungarian Mendelssohn." Weiner was essentially a Romantic composer, and his compositions, though certainly featuring modern touches, never ventured into either polytonalism or atonalism. As these trends pioneered by Stravinsky, Bartók, and Schonberg began to come into vogue, Weiner's reputation and that of his music slowly receded, as did the music of other contemporary composers who remained faithful to traditional tonality
This faithfulness to tonality can clearly be heard in his third and final string quartet, written in 1938. It is in three movements. The opening movement, Pastorale, though lyrical, is also light and airy. The main theme found in the first violin strongly reminds one of birdsong. While there are several episodes of advanced tonality, overall, traditional tonality, albeit of a modern nature, is maintained. The second movement, Fantasy, bears the tempo marking Poco adagio. There is a pentatonic tonality that reminds one of Vaughan Williams. The main theme is dreamy and wandering. The lively finale is a Fugue based on an old Hungarian folk melody.
We are pleased to make this hard-to-find, worthwhile modern work available.
