Purcell | A selection of Fantasias |
Haydn | String Quartet Op. 33 No. 5 in G major |
Beethoven | String Quartet in C major Op. 59 No. 3 'Razumovsky' |
Congratulations to the Nicholas Yonge Society and its
Concert Secretary Chris Darwin for bringing the Chiaroscuro Quartet to
Lewes. I've rarely enjoyed a concert
more. Alina, Pablo, Emilie and Claire,
introduced by Chris as four musicians from five countries, played with the
cellist seated on a platform and the others standing up, so that their heads
were more or less at the same level. As
the name of the Quartet suggests, we were treated to an evening of extreme
contrasts, in repertoire, tempo, volume, and legato/staccato (for which I don’t
know a one-word characterisation).
We started with Purcell’s Fantasias 7 and 8, composed
in 1680 three days apart on 19th and 22nd June, and
Fantasia 11 composed on 18th August.
In a way it is fitting that these workings-out of Purcell’s inner
compulsions emerged only in the twentieth century, when their chromaticism and
dissonance were still extreme but no longer quite so baffling, let alone
seeming barbaric or insane. This was
melancholic music for that austere ensemble of previous centuries, the consort
of viols. Fantasia 7 is the darkest of
all, and from the first long notes the audience seemed rapt or perhaps
stunned. I don’t recall a concert with
so few coughs; the Wigmore Hall audience should take note. The sound of a string quartet is lighter and
sweeter than that of a viol consort but Purcell’s music cut through the newer
sonority and the Chiaroscuros made of it a success. Played with complete suppression of vibrato,
those long notes were endless, but the quartet’s intonation was faultless. Fast passages intervene in all three
Fantasias, and the mood picked up almost to serenity in the concluding Fantasia
11.
Which was just as well in view of the extraordinary
musical development over 101 years from Purcell, harking backward, to Haydn,
always advancing. In his Opus 33 No. 5
the pauses and re-starts in the first movement are, if not jokes, at least
surprises. The “How do you do?” initial
phrase is repeated throughout in modified or original form in a movement of
almost symphonic scope and length. The
two early editions of Opus 33 give the middle movements of this quartet in
different orders, but here the Chiaroscuros or the edition they use interlaces
the ‘flowing’ with the ‘jolting’ movements, in line with their general approach
of seeking contrasts. The second
movement was thus that marked Largo e cantabile, and the first violin’s
song, unadorned at first and then increasingly ornate, gave all that could be
hoped for. Onwards with the Scherzo
where the stamping, almost drumming, initial phrase was played a little
tentatively at first, giving the opportunity to make it ever more emphatic on
subsequent repetitions, adding to the joke.
Haydn makes his peace with the humourless in the final movement with its
lilting siciliano rhythm.
Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets, or 17 if you count
the Große Fuge separately, in comparison to Haydn’s 68, so we hear each of them
more often and the third Razumovsky Quartet will have been familiar, perhaps to
most of the audience. Nevertheless we
heard it anew. The rhythmic drive and
forward impulse of the Allegro in the first movement contrasted
wonderfully with the veiled and tentative introduction. The second movement is surely the emotional
core of the work. Its wistful second
theme on the first violin was heart-stopping over the insistent pizzicato from
the cello. Mostly marked p and
played as such, the cello’s plucked notes were as if the loudest sound, driving
the movement to its very end.
The last two movements of Razumovsky 3 are played
without a break, and the response to the quartet’s finishing absolutely
together, at breakneck speed, was what for a classical audience counts as an
ovation, rightly so. Both the Haydn and
Beethoven quartets in the programme make frequent use of rests and pauses of
various lengths, and the Chiaroscuros clearly savoured these, never cut them
short, and always started up again completely simultaneously, as if by magic.
They have not yet recorded the works on this programme
so let us hope that some of them will appear on their future CDs.
Reviewer: Charles Goldie
Photographer: David James