Kammermusiksaal Hermann J.
Abs, Bonn
Beethoven: Violin
Sonata no.8 in G major, op.31 no.3
Beethoven: String
Quartet no.5 in A major, op.18 no.5
Olli Mustonen: Sextet
(world premiere)
Beethoven: String
Quartet no.16 in F major, op.135
Antti Tikkanen, Mina Pensola (violins)
Atte Kilpeläinen, Tabea Zimmermann (violas)
Tomas Djupsjöbacka (cello)
Janne Saksala (double bass)
Olli Mustonen (piano)
BTVN
WOCHE 2020 took a different path from predecessors, offering in Beethoven’s
anniversary year his music alone – ‘Beethoven Pur’ – in order to present the
entirety of his chamber music. However, no such celebration would be complete
without at least a glance to the present and future, so for its final instalment,
Tabea Zimmermann’s final concert as artistic leader, we were treated also to
the world premiere of a newly commissioned work from Olli Mustonen, a Sextet
for two violins, two violas, cello, and double bass, the string quartet Meta4
joined by Zimmermann and Janne Saksala.
First,
however, we heard Antti Tikkanen and Mustonen as pianist for Beethoven’s Violin
Sonata, op.31 no.3. A first movement infused with nervous energy, skittish and
excitable even to the point of violence both confounded reasonable expectations
and set the tone for much that was to follow, both in this work and in the concert
as a whole. The second movement was likewise full of contrasts, both within and
between sections, however defined. I confess that I wondered initially whether
it were simply too much, but it grew on me – and far better the shock of the
new than comfortably derivative Schlamperei.
There was no doubting that both these musicians cared. Ebullient, extrovert,
highly insistent, the finale proceeded somewhat in the vein of the first
movement, yet fulfilling nonetheless its structural role. This was, then, like Meta4’s
performances in an earlier concert, as well as those to come, a highly
rhetorical reading the likes of which I should not necessarily want to hear
often, but which seized the moment for itself.
The
op.18 no.5 Quartet proved freely unpredictable, as by now I had learned to
expect. Whether I could quite discern a line in the first movement was at best
an open question, but such rediscovery was never dull. A similarly free second
movement seemed to cohere better, its drunken, rustic trio full of charm and
wit. One needed to listen intently, but so one should. The minuet’s reprise,
heard through the trio, proved a little crazier still. (Largely) winning eccentricity
characterised the third movement, traversing an extraordinary range of
emotions, styles, possibilities. This, I felt, truly got to the heart of the
players’ vision: a divine and at times rambunctious comedy. The helter-skelter
creation of euphony and contest between euphonies heard in the finale proved
quite a ride, fascinating and, I think, revealing so long as one held on tight.
Mustonen’s
three-movement Sextet was clearly intended to be heard with and in relation to
Beethoven. A meta-work? Most probably, but that doubtless only rephrases the
question(s). The angular rhythms of the opening suggested Beethovenian gesture
reimagined, subsequently balanced and/or contrasted with a more ‘feminine’ – to
employ nineteenth-century gendered language – second subject equivalent, which
nonetheless seemed to grow from what we had heard before. What I learned
immediately after formulating that impression, however, was that it was better
to listen on whatever the work’s own terms might be, for that Beethoven
comparison quickly proved unhelpful, indeed quite wrong. We may still often find
our bearings in the musical world with a Beethovenian compass – more often than
not, the ‘Beethoven’ of the later nineteenth century – but at some point we
need to let go. Will ‘Beethoven’ let us, though? Material related to those opening
gestures kept on returning; I even fancied I heard something related to the
Fifth Symphony. Ears and memories can (productively) play tricks. Then came a
glacial close, with little or no harmonic change.
Beethovenian
derivations became clearer in the second movement; or was I now listening
differently? What did those ghosts of Beethoven scherzi mean? What could they
mean, perhaps above all that of the Ninth Symphony? And did they not always possess
more potential meanings than any one performance or reading would allow? Accompagnato chords in remembrance of
the entry of the voice in the Ninth heralded the third and final movement. Answers
were different, if not necessarily unrelated. Again, has that not always been
the case for ‘Beethoven’? How do we connect fragments, remembered or misremembered?
And who, as composers, performers, listeners, and yes, scholars too, are ‘we’?
After all, Beethoven’s music has never gone out of fashion, never been
neglected. A little violence here and there may be just what it needs. Then, to
rebuild or not?
If
hardly ‘traditional’, whatever that may now mean, the first movement of
Beethoven’s final quartet, op.135, seemed less wilful and, more importantly,
more convincing in its liberties than that of op.18 no.5 had. Or was that a
matter of having been preceded by the Mustonen Sextet? How could I ever really know,
and why should I care? Whatever the answers to those unanswerable questions,
Beethoven’s musical procedures here seemed clearer to me, although, this music
being what it is, there was always much to challenge. The music seemed from the
outset to be developing themes of which we had prior knowledge: in medias res, however much we might
cling to the idea of ‘exposition’. A second movement of kinetic energy proved
so much of a whirlwind that a vortex beckoned, yet never quite materialised.
(Should that be dematerialised?) Seraphic fragility that nonetheless found
strength to construct something from itself characterised its successor. Then came
the ultimate question, both answerable and not: ‘Muß es sein?’ This was music
on the brink, even if we knew not of what, the query followed by release and intensification. The path hereafter
would be difficult though never obscure. There was struggle to be had, yet on
one level, at least: ‘Es muß sein’.
