Wigmore Hall
Brahms: String Quartet no.3 in B-flat major, op.67
Schumann: String Quartet no.2 in F major, op.41 no.2
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op.115
Erik Schumann, Ken Schumann (violins)
Brahms and Schumann fit, for many reasons, like a glove. Participation of the Schumann Quartet (named after its three Schumann brothers, not the composer) does no harm either; nor indeed, on the evidence of this concert, does a guest appearance from clarinettist Pablo Barrágan. This was an evening of fine musicmaking throughout, evidently appreciated by the Wigmore Hall audience.
First up was the third and last of Brahms’s
surviving string quartets. (He is said to have destroyed his first dozen, even twenty,
attempts, so fierce was his self-criticism, those first efforts having been
made at Schumann’s urging.) With the Schumanns, the first movement and much of
what was to follow wore their Beethovenian inheritance brightly. Even Brahms’s
trademark metrical complexity seemed to spring to an unusual extent from
Beethoven’s syncopation. There was something of late Beethoven’s fragmentation
too, from at least the second group onwards, though there was never any denying
Brahms’s own voice in the work’s undergrowth. None of it, of course, is
remotely easy listening, and the development too us to greater extremes, no
attempt made, quite rightly, to smooth the edges. The recapitulation seemed, in
duly Beethovenian fashion, at least as much a second development as a return.
I was struck, in the second movement, by the relish with which the players communicated
Brahms’s melodic profusion: first led by Erik Schumann’s first violin, proceeding
to involve all. Still more important was the creation of an emotional world, poised
between tragedy and something more affirmative, that engendered. Ghosts of the
past made their presence felt: not only Beethoven, but Schumann, Bach, Schubert
too. It was luminous, yet unquestionably grounded. A more turbulent third
movement followed, seemingly darker and lighter, sometimes by turn, sometimes at
once. Veit Benedkt Hertenstein’s viola emerged, properly, as first among equals,
soon rivalled by Mark Schumann’s cello. Restless until the end, it prepared a
fine contrast with the post-Classicism in work and performance of the finale,
charm no more precluding depth than it would in Haydn. Serenity and joy were
hard won, and all the more appreciated for that. Here was fulfilment, predicated
on prior intense longing.
The first movement of Schumann’s F major Quartet, op.41 no.2, heard him in notably post-Classical style too. The Schumanns’ unhurried approach sounded just right to me: Allegro vivace does not mean the music should be harried, quite the contrary. The theme of the second movement was more inward, exuding all the charm of a ‘characteristic’ piano piece. Variations offered individuality and cumulative unity. By contrast, the scherzo and trio’s intensity and frankly involved character presented a later, almost Tchaikovskian Romanticism. The finale was delightfully puppy-like in character: a Haydn tribute, so it seemed, though with a Romantic heart.
For the second part, we returned to Brahms, to the Clarinet Quintet. Poised and searching, the first movement presented the clarinet now as first among equals, though Barrágan would generously cede as required. Fuller texture combined with still greater sense of chiaroscuro that attended a keen sense of form—and, with that, an equally keen sense of the Mozartian perfection of late Brahms. The Adagio’s sweet melancholy and resurgent passion, h painful in their memories, contributed further to an idea of ‘lateness’ that was anything but maudlin. Romantic questing captivated in the Andantino, relative lightness of tone yielding ambiguously to darker impulses. Stoicism was the order of the day at the onset of the final theme and variations, which unfolded with all the complexity of a human being’s warring passions. The path taken seemed inevitable at the close, though everything had been to play for during its course. This fully involving performance was followed by an encore arrangement, again for clarinet quintet, of Schumann’s Abendlied: once more poised and with subtly convincing depth.
