Grosse Saal,
Mozarteum
Mozart – String Quartet no.18
in A major, KV 464
Mendelssohn – String Quartet
no.2 in A minor, op.13Schumann – String Quartet no.1 in A minor, op.41 no.1
There was much to enjoy in this
recital from the Elias Quartet, substituting for the Hagen Quartet; I doubt
that anyone would have been disappointed by the substitution. Perhaps ironically,
given that this was the Salzburg Mozartwoche, it was the Mozart performance
(the A major Quartet, KV 464) that I responded to less warmly, but I suspect
that that was as much a matter of taste as anything else. There was certainly
cultivated, sweet-toned playing to be heard from the opening of the first
movement, but I sometimes wished for greater variety in articulation.
Otherwise, there was plenty of light and shade. Counterpoint and harmony were
in fine balance in the minuet and trio. Again, the performance was sweet of
tone, but I felt it might have smiled more. The Andante had many of the characteristics of the earlier movements: beautiful
but, at times, a little suffocating. There was, though, some ardent, committed
playing, especially in the minor mode. I liked the players’ way with the
sinuous chromatic lines of the finale, perhaps the movement I enjoyed most;
again, there was some splendidly ardent playing.
The Mendelssohn A minor Quartet,
op.13, opened in similarly beautiful fashion, also conveying the importance of
the composer’s harmonic shifts. More than once, Beethoven came to mind: no bad
thing in a string quartet! The first movement exposition was full-blooded,
without sacrifice to tonal beauty. Solos had a real sense of response to each
other, all very well taken, displaying difference in unity. The terse quality
of the closing bars questioned facile assumptions concerning the composer. The
second movement sounded haunted by the sweet fragility of late Beethoven, at
least at the opening, before developing in a fashion that surprised in other
ways; there was a passion to be heard that would not have been out of place in
Berg. When the return of what we might call late Beethovenian spirit came, the
question seemed to be: is this resignation? As Mendelssohn would later point
out, music is often too precise for words. Whatever it was, it was undeniably
moving. Again, though it never sounded ‘like’ late Beethoven, the different tendencies
and sheer strangeness of the third movement had something of that spirit.
However, I did wonder whether the Allegro
di molto might have benefited from sounding a little rawer in tone. There
was certainly no lack of a ‘cry’ at the opening of the finale. It would have
made anyone sit up, without seeming a mere effect. The seriousness of the young
Mendelssohn’s ambition and accomplishment was clear throughout.
Schumann’s A minor Quartet, his
first (I confess to tiring a little of the key!), opened in wonderfully
austere, ‘ancient’ fashion, gradually, magically warming. Bach was never far
away, it seemed. The surprise of the key (F major) in the main Allegro registered as it should; it
disconcerted, even when one knew it was coming. So did the path of the movement
as a whole; this was not comfortable Schumann. The scherzo offered the return
of A minor and, almost, so it seemed, of Mendelssohn. Its trio sounded almost
Mozartian by contrast: a winning element in programming and performance. The
return of F major in the slow movement, with its unmistakeable echoes of
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, registered with particular songfulness. Again,
there were no easy consolations here; indeed, there was a tendency towards
fragmentation that again made me think of late Beethoven, even Schoenberg
(doubtless via Brahms). There were more than occasional pre-echoes of Brahms in
the finale, whose performance yet remained true to its own particular
character. The final turn to A major proved a delightful surprise: again, even
when, perhaps especially when, one knew. Two Scottish tunes made for an encore
as surprising as it was excellent; they were very well-received.
