Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY THE EDINBURGH QUARTET
Alan Cooper
05 October 2009
THE COWDRAY HALL
The familiar faces of the Edinburgh Quartet have become warmly welcome to Aberdeen audiences thanks to their regular appearances for both University Music and at the Thursday Lunchbreak Concert series. These superb musicians have really hit the top of their form in the last few years and every time I hear them, they just get better and better. As the first guests of this year’s University Concert Season, their programme in the Cowdray Hall was a matchless one. The Dissonance K465, one of Mozart’s greatest quartets, as fascinating as it is challenging, was followed by Shostakovich’s most celebrated essay in the medium, Quartet No.8 Op.110. Then, to finish, there was the first Quartet by Dohnanyi. Although it does not rate quite as highly as the other two works, it was undoubtedly every bit as intriguing and as agreeable and fresh sounding.
It was the cello that broke the silence to introduce the extraordinary opening of Mozart’s Quartet in C Major K465. As the excellent programme note suggested, this music in many ways pre-figures Haydn’s Representation of Chaos which also leads eventually to a bright C major explosion on the words “and there was Light”. The Edinburgh Quartet succeeded in underlining the “otherworldly” effect of the opening bars of the Quartet by giving their tone a slightly skeletal edge before opening out into a richer and more rounded sound with the establishment of tonal certainty. The mists cleared to reveal a sunlit landscape. The first violin led off in a busy frenzy of activity and it was only now and again that the cello suggested a hint of wistfulness here and there. In this, as well as in the second movement where the cello melody is set against lovely harmonic colours supplied by the upper strings, Mark Bailey made his cello sing out heroically.
Although the spirit and the influence of Haydn run strongly throughout this quartet, I was strangely reminded in listening to the rhythmic jabs of the Menuetto of the Scherzos in the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. We tend to think of these composers as living many generations apart but they are closer than you would think.
In the finale it was Tristan Gurney who was firmly in the lead. Here Mozart seems more than once to make the music pause as if to think for a moment where he intends to go next, or is he perhaps turning to us and saying, “Come on you lot, keep up with me, I bet you can’t guess where I’m going to lead you next”? Once again we are reminded of Haydn and the limitless playfulness of that composer. What a superb quartet!
The world of Shostakovich is in so many ways a much darker one. The opening Largo was played with a marvellous sense of meditative sorrowfulness by the Edinburgh Quartet before the ferocious explosion of excoriating music in the Allegro. The heroic tones of a Russian sounding melody led to a kind of dance of death before at last, the music dies back into an elegiac conclusion for muted strings. I felt that this was one of the most finely balanced performances of this work I have ever heard. Not just were the four instruments so well co-ordinated but the contrasting moods of the work were just right and the individual parts were brought together to signify so much more.
A little light relief after that wonderfully strong performance was needed and the Quartet No 1 by Dohnanyi hit just the right spot. The opening movement was a return to the sunny landscapes of the Mozart Quartet but with lovely pastel harmonies and open textures. The second movement Allegretto grazioso was splendidly imaginative essay in how to instil lightness into the music; the way in which for example pizzicato was shared between the different instruments and moved around different sections of the quartet.
The slow movement gave us beautiful harmonic and contrapuntal colours before the finale with its suggestions of rustic harmonies, its robust fugal writing and its dance like undercurrents made for a superb conclusion to another first rate performance from the Edinburgh Quartet. They will be back in the Cowdray Hall on the last Saturday in October. Not to be missed!