Wigmore Hall
Schoenberg: String Quartet no.1 in D minor, op.7
Beethoven: String Quartet no.14 in C-sharp minor, op.131
Corina Belcea, Suyeon Kang (violins)
Schoenberg must be one of the very few composers who, heard with late Beethoven, can emerge as the more difficult of the two. Whether intrinsically so is probably a silly and certainly a fruitless question; yet, in terms of overall programming, it made for an interesting and satisfying pairing from the Belcea Quartet, Schoenberg’s First (numbered) String Quartet followed by Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet.
Schoenberg’s work opened as if a sequel to Verklärte Nacht, not only in D minor tonality, but in motivic writing, melody, harmony, and much else. Quickly, its coil twisted in a supremely flexible performance which, as a whole, served more to question than comfortably conform ideas of its form ‘being’ the Lisztian four-movements-in-one. ‘Yes, but…’ was the fitting place to start—and continue. Schoenberg’s hyper-expressivity came to the fore not only in febrile instrumental lines but in their connection, division, and (re-)integration, the first Chamber Symphony rightly but a stone’s throw away, ripples soon reaching its world. Harmony and counterpoint created one another, putting me in mind of Schoenberg’s later recognition that Mozart had been his guiding star all along, long before he realised it (as in, say, the Fourth Quartet). Concerto-like violin solo, Brahms in ‘Hungarian’ mode taken surprisingly far east; post-Meistersinger fugato; Brucknerian unison; mysterious harmonics; themes poised between Brahms and Strauss, twisting as if the branches of a Jugendstil forest: these and more combined in a work of Beethovenian struggle poised between the composer’s own Pelleas und Melisande and Die Jakobsleiter. The Belcea’s – and Schoenberg’s – lingering goodbye, in essence an extended cadence, not only fulfilled and extended expectations; it also proved the ideal introduction to the concert’s second half.
Beethoven’s Quartet emerged less as continuation than response, all the more touching – even Mozartian, albeit too ‘late’ in more than the chronological sense – for it. The fugue was shaped and built meaningfully without ever sounding moulded. The second movement in turn emerged tentatively from its shadows, soon establishing its own modus vivendi, fragility part yet only part of its character. Symmetries and onward development were the dialectic at play here, presaging those in fourth movement variations both rare and earthy. There was something exhilarating, arguably necessary, to the fresh air here: a woodland walk in the composer’s footsteps. The Belcea traced a path that took us somewhere stranger, disconcerting, even frightening, returning us safe and sound with a good dose of Beethovenian humanity. The scherzo’s relief had me smile and inwardly chuckle, its irrepressible qualities vividly told. A poignant, similarly noble sixth movement was disrupted by a seventh whose opening struck the fear of God into the hall, interiority of response no less disquieting. And so, that further dialectic was set up for the movement, without any sacrifice to the crucial element of surprise, to the eternal freshness of the work, and to the temporal freshness of this wonderful performance. It thrilled as it edified.
As an unexpected bonus, we heard the slow movement from Beethoven’s final quartet, op.135. Its initial conception as an eighth movement, in D-flat major, to op.131 offered, if not an aural glimpse of what might have been, then a fitting choice of encore, tonally and otherwise. Its unfolding continued to surprise yet ultimately consoled.
