Modigliani Quartet - Haydn and Brahms, 14 January 2018

Wigmore Hall

 

Haydn: String Quartet in G major, op.54 no.1

Haydn: String Quartet in G minor, op.74 no.3, ‘Rider’

Brahms: String Quartet no.1 in C minor, op.51 no.1

Amaury Coeytaux, Loïc Rio (violins)

Laurent Marfaing (viola)

François Kieffer (cello)

 

It was good to be back at the Wigmore Hall, by any standards the jewel in London’s musical crown, after almost a year away. No hall or house can maintain identical  standards, night in, night out – in this case, often day in, day out too – over an entire season; even if possible, it would be quite undesirable to do so. Nevertheless, the level of musical excellence heard here far more often than not only exceeds any other venue in London, but surely withstands comparison with any in the world. The Modigliani Quartet had much to tell us in performances of Haydn and Brahms: never merely ‘different’ for the sake of it, yet, by the same token, all possessing points of particular interest to differentiate themselves from others.

 

Haydn’s G major Quartet, op.54 no.1, opened with cultivated tone and considerable, although far from unvaried, vibrato. One should always be wary of imputing too readily ‘national’ or other stereotypical characteristics, but the group’s sound seemed to me very much to speak of a Franco-Belgian string heritage. My ears took a minute or so to adjust, having perhaps become more accustomed recently to other schools of string playing. (I have also probably listened to less in the way of string quartet music in my time away from London.) Whatever the characteristics of the sound – or Klang, as the German in me wants to say – the important thing was that, from this first movement onwards, formal process and dynamism were apparent, attentiveness of mutual listening equally clear. Modulatory development witnessed a relative, although only relative, withdrawal of vibrato, as it subtly to underline Haydn’s questing. Its concision was breathtaking, almost Webern-like. Rightly, everything had changed in the recapitulation, its material played and heard anew. Nothing was taken for granted in the slow movement either. Without any unnecessary underlining, phrasal, harmonic, and almost Schubertian modulatory qualities were made, or perhaps better, enabled, to tell. Haydn’s startling originality and ‘rightness’ of form were rendered immanent. Beethoven was but a stone’s throw away in the minuet and trio, yet a stone’s throw away he remained; this was still very much Haydn. Motivic integration nevertheless looked forward far into the future, at least as far – with the rest of the programme in mind – as Brahms. Rigour and fun proved inseparable in the finale: a properly Haydnesque combination. Both work and performance evinced sheer delight in musical argument: an object lesson in navigation of the overarching tonal universe and of the particularities of this work.

 

The opening bars of the Rider Quartet immediately announced that Haydn will always do things differently, in every quartet as in every symphony. Material dictated, or suggested, the terms of performance, and rightly so. Here, the composer’s transformations, all lovingly, intelligently handled, proved worthy of Beethoven or Liszt, permitting the work’s opening G minor sadness, close to yet never to be identified with, that of Mozart, to give way to other, quite different forms of musical expression. In some ways, the music seemed to assert its status as heir to the Sturm und Drang Haydn – without, again, being merely identified with him. Harmonic and tonal rarity, in every sense, were apparent in the slow movement; it was difficult not to think already of late Beethoven. The central turn to E minor offered a dignified, noble sadness all its own. The third movement was taken as a not-quite-scherzo, which seemed spot on; it might have been in three, yet was not really. Intensification in the trio was especially well judged. Haydn’s finale surprised with every twist and turn, even when, perhaps particularly when, one ‘knew’ it. The composer’s genius of motivic development and transformation could hardly have been granted more subtly dramatic life.

 

It was interesting, indeed enlightening, to hear Brahms’s First Quartet in the motivic developmental light of the Haydn works. If initially I found the first movement somewhat hard-driven, I tried to ask myself whether that were my problem rather than that of the performance; most likely it was. The music in any case relaxed for the second group, without loss to dramatic tension. Crucially, there were throughout this performance no compromises with the difficulty of the work. I have heard it played with richer tone, but so what? Tellingly, greater tonal richness was to be heard at points of developmental climax, prior to post-Mendelssohn passages of exhaustion. Voice-leading came very much to the fore in the Romanze, an heir to Schumann as much in sensibility as in method. Mediated simplicity was something to be worked at, by players and listeners alike; the effort was unquestionably worth it. A concision that spoke of Beethoven was to be heard in the third movement; again, one had to listen, and rightly so. There were, moreover, surely echoes of Haydn to be heard and relished in the trio, in tandem with a keen sense of ghostly, even corrosive questioning. The finale offered highly wrought intensity: a conclusion in every sense. Brahms never offers easy answers; there was no attempt to pretend that he does here.

 

Puccini’s Crisantemi proved an inspired choice of encore. Craftsmanship and elegiac sensibility alike proclaimed the composer far more ‘German’ than his often regrettable popular reputation might suggest. Not for nothing would he and Schoenberg so greatly admire one another.

 

Modigliani Quartet/Rana - Schumann, 30 December 2015

Wigmore Hall

String Quartet no.3 in A major, op.41 no.3

Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op.47
Piano Quintet in E-flat major, op.44

Philippe Bernhard, Loïc Rio (violins)

Laurent Marfaing (viola)

François Kieffer (cello)

Beatrice Rana (piano)

 

My 2015 concert calendar opened with Schumann, courtesy of Jonas Kaufmann, and closed with Schumann. It also opened and closed at the Wigmore Hall. The Modigliani Quartet, joined by Beatrice Rana, offered a fascinating selection of chamber music from 1842, starting with the A major String Quartet, op.41 no.3.

The first movement’s echo – surely a conscious tribute? – of Beethoven’s op.31 no.3 Piano Sonata was clear. Sadness, however, differentiated it. What followed was Romantically developed, that sadness never, quite rightly, being entirely banished. The players offered a glowing Romantic tone: no fashionable withdrawal of vibrato or other expressive parsimony here. What we heard was, at times, short-breathed, but in a positive sense; so is Schumann’s writing, or at least it can be. The unease of syncopation was quite disconcerting. There was, moreover, real pain to be heard during the development, especially from Laurent Marfaing’s viola and François Kieffer’s cello; this was not a performance to offer sacrifices upon the altar of ‘mere’ beauty. Indeed, in some ways, this sounded a later work than it actually is. That sense of trouble persisted with the syncopations of the second movement. Bachian counterpoint seemed almost to win out over the Beethovenian tendencies still stronger in the preceding movement, but truly Schumannesque ‘character’ eventually called into question such easy typologies. It was difficult, though, not to experience a haunting from the world of Schubert and Death and the Maiden. Classical restraint returned (more or less) in the slow movement, perhaps closer to Schumann’s celebrated, if wrong-headed, conception of Mozart. It sang, though, and the path upon which it proceeded was very much Schumann’s own. This was an ‘involved’ performance in the best senses, burdened and liberated by cross-rhythms. The finale sounded, quite rightly, as if possessed by an aspirant skittishness which could not quite become the real, or at least the unmediated, thing. This was a Haydnesque ‘as if…’. Energy and physicality were here very much the hallmark of the Modigliani Quartet’s performance.

 

Philippe Bernhard left the stage for the Piano Quartet, the remaining trio joined by Beatrice Rana. I was not quite so convinced by her contribution, which often sounded a little reticent, although there was nothing in particular to complain about either. At any rate, the introduction to the first movement sounded full of potential, not unlike that to a Haydn symphony. And indeed, Schumann’s Classical inheritance here sounded much stronger throughout much of the movement, indeed the work. He is, perhaps, less enigmatic here, although the work is certainly not without its mysteries. The scherzo was taken very fast, yet without sounding in the least unduly driven. Mendelssohn, the quartet’s dedicatee, seemed present, albeit darkened, more troubled. The slow movement offered straining after Beethovenian sublimity, the music again finding an alternative, compelling way. Here, the ‘as if…’ was more Mozartian. Melody was heart-rendingly enthroned, yet never quite secure in that enthronement: the performance was all the more touching for it. Virtuosic high spirits came to the fore, at least sometimes, in the finale: what string playing this was!

 

After the interval, we heard all five players in the Piano Quintet. Earlier this month, I heard a very fine performance from the Quatuor Ebène and Mitsuko Uchida; at the time, I lamented that we did not hear this work more often. ‘Maybe “we” do,’ I added, ‘and I have just been unfortunate in missing out on performances.’ Indeed! This performance had little to fear from comparisons with its exalted predecessor. Rana’s playing gained in character, and if it could hardly be said to rank with that of Uchida’s, then we should remind ourselves that music-making is not, or should not be, a competition. On its own terms, there was much to enjoy, and the Modigliani players were excellent indeed. The first movement was forthright yet flexible. ‘Soloists’ from the strings were probably more Romantically yielding than their Ebène counterparts; one ‘duet’ from viola and cello had one’s heart stop. Perhaps that was occasionally at the expense of the last degree of structural cohesion, but if so, the expense was slight. The second movement was characterised by interplay, indeed a dialectic, between the initial, Schubertian note of grim determination and melodic necessity. The strings offered Romantic – and romantic – intensity in an extremely powerful reading. Not for the first time, I found myself having to ‘backdate’ Brahmsian qualities. The scherzo was lively, goal-oriented, again without sounding hard-driven. Rana contributed some splendidly pellucid piano playing. Schumann’s finale benefited from playing that was similar – and yet, in context, different. There was a vehemence that Brahms would surely have admired, which yet, in the twinkling of an eye, transformed itself into something other.