Quatuor Ébène: Haydn, Bartók, and Schubert, 10 October 2023

Kammermusiksaal

Haydn: String Quartet in G minor, Hob. III:33, op.20 no.3
Bartók: String Quartet no.3, Sz 85
Schubert: String Quartet no.15 in G major, D 887

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)
Marie Chilemme (viola)
Yuya Okamoto (cello)

This was an outstanding concert: three masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire in performances that were not only of the highest quality but also, especially in Schubert’s case, constantly (in a good way) surprising. The Quatuor Ébène, here with Yuya Okamato substituting for regular cellist Raphaël Merlin, is of course one of the world’s leading chamber ensembles; I doubt anyone would question that. But there was absolutely no resting on laurels.

If a Death on the Maiden I heard from this quartet fourteen years ago had announced a Schubert raging against the dying of the light, this G major Quartet took such tendencies further. Not only was this anything but a comfortable, Biedermeier Schubert, it was perhaps the most brazenly modernistic incarnation of the composer I have heard: certainly so when it comes to quartet-playing. There were times when I might have thought this music from a century later, especially coming as it did after Bartók’s Third Quartet, although then I remembered late Beethoven—and appreciated just how much vehement strength of purpose was shared between the two composers. Not that lyricism, whether in the first movement or elsewhere, was absent, but it was never merely lyrical, never a chance for repose. This is not how I should always like to hear Schubert, but that is not the point. Its compelling instability, within an overarching command of form and structure, had it make sense, almost like never before. A disconcerting combination of nervous energy and E minor melancholy characterised the second movement. Ferocious, grandly rhetorical outbursts to rival anything in Winterreise, made their point both in themselves but also, crucially, in relation to the music surrounding them. The scherzo was similarly febrile and full of startling dynamic contrasts. Even its Trio afforded little in the way of relaxation. Deeply ambiguous, heard as if through the haze of an uncomfortable summer night, its dreams seemed to tend towards a delirium carried through into a finale whose tipsy mood swings might charm yet could never console.

That 2009 Wigmore Hall concert had featured the same Bartók quartet. My memory is far too faded to attempt a comparison; suffice it to say that I was mightily impressed on both occasions. The first of its four parts vividly set out a number of dialectical contrasts and connections. Bartók does that, of course, but he needs his players to do so too. This they did in a performance as intent on making every note count as if it had been Webern, though the sheer profusion of melody on offer put me in mind of Mozart and Schoenberg too. The transition to the second part, as to each of the four parts, was splendidly handled: not only convincing but thrilling. Cello pizzicato having incited an infernal dance, themes could be turned upside down, inside out: always themselves, yet always new, a veritable homage to Bach. The ‘Ricapitulazione della prima parte’ again combined the desolate and the welcoming, the ensuing Coda having its mysteries unlocked through recognition that gesture and motivic transformation were dependent on one another, even two sides to the same coin.

First on the programme was Haydn’s G minor Quartet, op.20 no.3. Just as much as in the Bartók that followed, the players ensured that every note and its connections to what had gone and what would follow truly mattered. The freshness announced in the first movement, with a continuous development at least to rival that to be heard in the two later works spoke – and sang – in a Sturm und Drang manner that served as a meeting-point for what, with the broadest brush, we might think of as ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’ tendencies. There was no attempt to smooth the dissonances of the Menuetto; rather they registered fully within a euphonious balance that permitted the richness of Haydn’s inner parts to have their say. The slow movement was similarly rich, as it were, in its plain-spokenness, again characterised by something close to Schoenbergian developing variation. A tonal surprise to take one’s breath away such as one might expect from Schubert was as perfectly prepared as it was executed. The finale benefited from a different yet equal variety of intensity, suited to its character and function, replete with unexpected turns that, once heard, could never have been otherwise. The Quatuor Ébène brought all these to life in a vivid theatre of the imagination.

Quatuor Ebène - Haydn, Janáček, and Schumann, 15 October 2021

Wigmore Hall

Haydn: String Quartet in D major, op.20 no.4
Janáček: String Quartet no.1, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’
Schumann: String Quartet no.2 in F major, op.41 no.2

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)

Marie Chilemme (viola)

Raphaël Merlin (cello)

You will struggle to find—no, you will not find—quartet playing finer than this. Audience response to the Quatuor Ebène’s performance of Janáček’s Kreutzer Sonata Quartet bore an enthusiasm that registered somewhere between elation and shell-shock, heightened by the presence of a large number of young string players, identified not only by the palpable intent of their listening, but also by their instrument cases. 

From the outset of Janáček’s first movement, one had—as in the preceding Haydn quartet—of life- and, in this case, perhaps death-giving potentiality in every theme, motif, and cell. ‘I was imagining,’ Janáček told Kamila Stösslová, ‘a poor woman, tormented, beaten, battered to death, as the Russian writer Tolstoy described in his Kreutzer Sonata.’ Here were a pain and longing familiar, even sublimated, from Katya Kabanova and a highly developed sense of instrumental drama. One might or might not know Tolstoy—or Katya—but it did not matter; this was enough. The players’ mastery seemed almost to extend Janáček’s soundworld further than it goes already—or perhaps it is better to think in terms of responding more deeply than ever to potentiality, for there was no question of anything failing to sound as written, as conceived. The second movement, likewise characterised by intense drama of the imagination, foresaw, so it seemed, the world of the still-later From the House of the Dead. Sharply etched, coruscating, it breathed an unquenchable spirit that prepared the way for a successor that was, if anything, still more intense and extreme in its polarities. Janáček’s warm irascibility, perhaps also irascible warmth, spoke as ever of ineffable humanity. Here was a tone poem in itself, save of course that it acquired meaning as part of a greater whole. In the final movement, a sense of tragic revisitation, like a final act bringing the drama to a head, hung over music, both as work and performance, which necessarily had some way yet to travel; until, that is, it was over, shatteringly. 

Not entirely dissimilar in its still-shocking experimentalism, motivic development in Haydn’s Quartet op.20 no.4 was also relished by all concerned. The first movement introduction was set up as a set of questions and answers, which grew into something more, imbued with almost infinite energy and potential. Its strange eruptions, weirdly yet aptly prophetic of Janáček, likewise always felt dramatically necessary—and let us never forget what a drama, in the proper sense, sonata form is. When Haydn plays with our expectations, as he does here, he needs players to respond in kind; this they certainly did. The sad dignity of the second movement’s opening theme was at times more astringent in tone than I had previously heard from this quartet, but there was nothing dogmatic to that; their palette was broad, wisely drawn from, and coherent in context and expressive purpose. The ensuing variations showed, yet again, what nonsense is the claim we sometimes hear that variation form in Haydn and Mozart somehow has a lesser status than in preceding and succeeding eras. (Goodness knows where people get this idea from; presumably they copy it from one another. All they need do is read, play, or listen.) Raphaël Merlin’s cello, sensitive and commanding, proved as eloquent a principal narrator in the second variation as one could hope for; his colleagues responded as equals, invited and incited. Throughout, this was Haydn at both his most tragic and his most varied in tragic impulse, immanent in the Ebène’s intensity of conception. Rustic tone combined with post-Baroque complexity in the Allegretto alla zingarese, the concision of the first movement further intensified. Haydn’s experimental mastery in the finale, high-spirited, obstinate, helter-skelter, and above all consequent, was conveyed with equal drama and understanding. 

In some ways, Schumann’s F major Quartet sounded more Classical than Haydn—let alone Janáček. Not that it is without Romanticism, of course, but the tone of late Classicism we heard, especially in its first movement, was both appealing and apposite. There were new paths in the development, though in general a sense of subtle restraint. The second movement, another set of variations, unfolded patiently, permitted to reveal its secrets in its own time. And when it blossomed, it truly blossomed; one was rewarded—handsomely—for listening. There was a sense of Beethoven reimagined: not our Beethoven, nor perhaps Beethoven’s, but naturally Schumann’s. Beethoven and Mendelssohn haunted the scherzo, though it was certainly not to be reduced to any matter of ‘influence’. Its trio proved notably good-humoured. Schumann’s Romantic confidences and digressions form the very path of the finale; so it was in this case, a feeling somehow only heightened by a decision to stop, quickly re-tune, and resume, urgency not so much regained as redoubled. As a lovely encore, we were treated to the Quatuor Ebène’s own arrangement of the first piece from Schumann’s Bunte Blätter.

Quatuor Ebène - Beethoven and Brahms, 12 December 2018

Wigmore Hall

Beethoven: String Quartet in F major, op.18 no.1

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

Beethoven: String Quartet in F major, op.135

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)

Marie Chilemme (viola)

Raphaël Merlin (cello)

This was, by any standards, an evening of fine performances from the Quatuor Ebène. If I still felt a few nagging doubts at the close, I am not even sure why. Perhaps it was the programming. If the idea of Beethoven’s first – in official numbering – and last string quartets on the same programme had much to recommend it, was Brahms’s First Quartet an ideal work to hear in between them? Perhaps it was the identity of that work, no matter what the performance or programme. Dyed in the wool Brahmsian that I may be, I still find it a very tough nut to crack. Perhaps it was just me in some other way. Why mention that at all? Only really to suggest that any hint of the lukewarm may reflect more upon me than upon the performances, from which, to be fair, I learned much about the works in question.

The first movement of Beethoven’s op.18 no.1 received an alert, cultivated performance form the outset. Marrying Haydn and Mozart, it was yet never reducible to its origins. Mozart sounded most evident in the balance between phrases, Haydn in the exploratory boldness of the development section, then read into the recapitulation. It was difficult not to think of the composer’s First Symphony. Richly expressive flow, like a river and its tributaries, proved a welcome characteristic of the slow movement. Or was it more akin to a tree and its branches? Either way – words will always be insufficient – it worked. There was passion, in more than one sense, to Beethoven’s vehement outbursts: unnerving, yet unquestionably right. If the fleet scherzo lacked the true simplicity of later Beethoven (as well as its concomitant complexity) that surely reflects the work rather than its performance. Classical poise, complicated by more than a necessary hint of the neo-Classical – it was already too late quite to be Mozart – characterised an accomplished account of the finale.  

There was no denying the motivic concision of the Ebène’s Brahms op.51 no.1, nor the expressive consequences of that concision. I was struck anew by how everything at least seemed to arise – arguably did – from those opening bars, not least the particular character of the viola writing (excellent work indeed from Marie Chilemme). If anything, that concision and concentration – almost yet not quite the same thing – increased as the first movement progressed: Brahms on a coil spring. The Romanze sang, insofar as Brahms permits; it likewise conveyed, even dramatised his complex reticence. Introverted, difficult, the scherzo paved the way for a trio all the more inscrutable, offering a degree of release in the finale, its cumulative motivic force more overwhelming still than the first movement. The players certainly had this music’s measure; perhaps one day I shall warm to it more than I yet am able.

Good natured mastery characterised the first movement of Beethoven’s op.135: Haydn aufgehoben. Beethoven’s counterpoint rightly sounded quite different, though, both in immediate nature and function. The composer’s – and the performance’s – syntheses sounded so much less effortful than Brahms’s, which again is surely meet and right. Answering phrases now sounded quite unlike those of Mozart, underlining the gulf between this and the opening quartet. The relationship between vehemence and precision in the second movement was finely judged. Unrelenting in the best sense, the music looked ahead to Bartók, even beyond. A poised, dignified slow movement voiced a strangeness of harmony – still in 2018 – that could yet reconcile, only to be met by a duly disorienting introduction to the finale. Humanity ultimately won out in an integrative performance of the finale that certainly did not shirk its difficulties: much, then, to ponder.

Uchida/Quatuor Ebène - Haydn, Ravel, and Schumann, 6 December 2015

Wigmore Hall

Haydn – String Quartet in C major, op.20 no.2

Ravel – String Quartet in F major
Schumann – Piano Quintet in E-flat major, op.44

Mitsuko Uchida (piano)

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)

Adrien Boisseau (viola)

Raphaël Merlin (cello)

  

The Vienna Konzerthaus might, for a month, have become my new favoured hall – strictly, a house of more than one hall – but returning to the Wigmore Hall reminded me, just in case I needed reminding, that the Wigmore Hall not only stands as first among equals for chamber music; it is, simply, the best in the world. This programme from the Quatuor Ebène and Mitsuko Uchida would have offered a great attraction anywhere and certainly did in musically overflowing London, soon selling out; the resulting concert proved equally impressive.

 

This was certainly one of the best performances of a Haydn quartet I have heard, constantly taking one by surprise – in the best way. The intriguing opening sonority – for which responsibility should be shared between composer and players: high cello singing above second violin and viola – sounded redolent of the old sonata di chiesa or still more venerable music for viol consort, but with the most modern of means, in itself a lesson for apostles of ‘authenticity’. This was never, thank God, a vibrato-free, or even vibrato-lite, zone. Out of such an opening, there blossomed full Classical tone and style. Counterpoint, of course, remained Janus-faced, generatively so. The rest of this extraordinary movement was both furious and complex, in work and performance. One needed to listen, and was finely rewarded when one did. The opening unison of the second movement ‘spoke’ almost like a recitativo acommpagnato, looking back to the late Baroque and sideways perhaps, even if coincidentally so, to Gluck, yet also looking forward, even pre-empting Beethoven. I thought of the slow movement to the Fourth Piano Concerto, Orpheus famously taming the furies. Transition to a more lyrical plane sounded somehow both fragile and secure – something, perhaps, to do with the relationship between melody and harmony – and again seemed to beckon toward the Romantic conception, right or wrong, of Beethoven having burst formal bonds. The fury of subsequent unison outbursts intensified such dialectical tension, preparing the way for different yet related dialectical ambiguities in the minuet (connected, of course, to its predecessor). Haydn, rightly, emerged as every bit as ‘difficult’ a composer as Brahms, Schoenberg, or, yes, Beethoven. The great tension built up, as great as anything in Beethoven, was worked out with a triumphant finale worthy of Haydn’s sometimes unhappy pupil. Yet there was also the intellectual nonchalance akin to late Mozart. The audacity of work and performance truly took my breath away. Magnificent!

Ravel received a performance, which, if less surprising, was no less excellent. The players offered a more conventionally polished sound from the outset; one could hardly have – or wish to have – ‘unpolished’ Ravel. There was sheen aplenty for fury and placidity alike, as the composer surely demands. (Presumably somebody somewhere is claiming that any Ravel performance daring to show a little vibrato, a little beauty of tone, is an outright abomination, but who cares?) Subtle rubato emerged from the material rather than being imposed upon it. The scherzo thrilled, sparks duly, precisely, lovingly flying. Tenderness, though, lay at its heart. There was an almost Webern-like mystery to the slow movement, an inscrutability to the opening material and its development: seemingly unpredictable, even when one ‘knew’ it. This was not easy Ravel; nor should it have been. There was great sweetness but we also experienced great reticence and an almost Debussyan ambiguity: through, not in spite of, compositional and performative precision. The finale opened, seemingly hurtling towards the vortex, à ‘La Valse’¸taking with it material it recalled from before, but with progress as mysterious as that in the preceding movement. The Quatuor Ebène offered playing of a febrile intensity such as to attain true climax.

Uchida added her famously pellucid piano tone and unforced, unshowy musicality to the ensemble for Schumann’s Piano Quintet. I really cannot understand why we do not hear this wonderful work more often; maybe ‘we’ do, and I have just been unfortunate in missing out on performances. The opening of the first movement was forthright yet melting, solo – by which, I do not just mean the piano – and ensemble playing equally tender. Schumann’s myriad of instrumental combinations were rendered wonderfully alive. Closeness to Brahms was both maintained and guarded against; this sounded ‘like’ no one other than Schumann, whatever connections presented themselves. Indeed, at some points, both here and in the second movement, it was Schubert and the Lied tradition that came to my mind, composer and performance seemingly constructing and deconstructing song before our ears. All, in a sense, were both songbirds and their grim hunters. Uchida maintained the harmonic basis for all that happened, as if playing for an instrumental Frauenliebe und -leben. The scherzo, by contrast, showed a strength of purpose which it was more or less impossible not to think of as Beethovenian, underlying even the relative relaxation of the first trio. Concision, both in work and performance, were certainly worthy of Beethoven, and it was difficult to avoid the sense of Schumann touching Brahms’s shoulder in the second trio. The exhilaration was such that we might almost already have heard our finale. That, of course, required something different, and received it, in what must surely be one of Schumann’s most creative responses to the ‘finale problem’. The music emerged in all its variegated glory and, at least as important, with all its emotional weight. Bachian lessons were learned – and returned with interest.

 

Quatuor Ebène - Mozart, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky, 1 May 2012

Wigmore Hall

Mozart – String Quartet no.19 in C major, KV 465, ‘Dissonance’
Schubert – String no.13 in D minor, D 804, ‘Rosamunde’
Tchaikovsky – String Quartet no.1 in D major, op.11

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)
Mathieu Herzog (viola)
Raphaël Merlin (cello)


The Quatuor Ebène’s visits to the Wigmore Hall have regularly featured amongst my chamber music highlights over the past few years. This concert proved equally distinguished, save for one reservation, which I shall get out of the way first. It has nothing to do with the performances, but rather concerns one of the works. Even in so committed a performance as this – and the unanimity of tone at the opening, akin to an audition of very superior hymn-singing, was as impressive as anything we heard this evening – I was not convinced that Tchaikovsky’s first string quartet shows the composer at anything like his most inspired, nor that the string quartet was ever a natural medium of expression for him, that despite highly wrought intensity from the players, offset from time to time by a (relatively) greater classicism of approch in the first movement. The second movement was charmingly songful, with some gorgeous portamenti, never overdone, from first violinist, Pierre Colombet. Intensity of expression from all the players always seemed perfectly judged. The scherzo was vigorous, rhythmically exact and yet with a sense of something wilder, and the finale featured simply glorious string playing, almost persuading me that the piece is better than it really is. Rich yet variegated tone and high spirits took one a long way indeed. As for the encore, I am even less convinced by the claims so many make for Astor Piazzolla, but whichever tango it was, was expertly despatched.

Returning to the central repertory, Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet was first upon a programme of considerable length. Dramatic intensity of tone permitted the extraordinary radicalism of the first movement’s introduction fully to register, the exposition proper revelling in cultivated, alert playing, leading to undeniable passion in the development section. Near-Beethovenian intensity, born of motivic propulsion, proved properly creative of form. The richness of Mozart’s writing in the recapitulation – so much more, of course than ‘mere’ recapitulation – was clearly relished by all concerned. Moreover, there was a cello solo from Raphaël Merlin truly to make one swoon. A flowing quality, in the best sense as opposed to the modern euphemism for absurdly fast, characterised the slow movement. Hushed playing and bold gestures were integrated alike into a greater whole. The music was despatched with a charm that verged upon the Schubertian, yet with a poise that remained entirely Mozart’s own. Unafraid to pre-empt Beethovenian experimentation in the minuet, the Ebène players never actually sounded quite ‘like’ Mozart’s successor. The spirit of eighteenth-century dance remained – if only just, which is how it should be. And of course, the sinuous allure could be no one else’s. Perhaps most striking was the intensity of motivic development in the trio, which here could not help but put one in mind of Brahms and Schoenberg. Mozart’s Shakespearean breadth of sympathy was revealed in the finale as surely as in his operas. Quicksilver transformations from Haydnesque grace – and yes, of course there is much, much more to Haydn than that – to Mozart’s minor-mode daemon were effected with dramatic dash and credibility. And what Schoenberg called the Idea of the work was palpable, if undefinable, throughout; no wonder Schoenberg so adored Mozart’s chamber music.

The first movement of Schubert’s Rosamunde Quartet navigated surely the precarious balance and fruitful dialectic between the sweetness of pain and nostalgia, and angry gesture. Contrasts intensified in the development, which rached an almost Mahlerian level of intensity – that word again – before subsiding, so as to permit stoic recapitulatory defiance. There was another balance to be struck, another dialectic to be explored, in the slow movement: that between space for unfolding and the neecessity of resigned yet onward tread. Violence was more sparingly employed here, yet to shocking effect. The minuet was relatively subdued, yet was far from being without incident; one just had to listen carefully. Hearts were more openly on sleeve in the trio, movingly so. The finale struck just the right note of suggesting an impossible desire to return to Mozart. Time had passed, in more than one sense. There was an apt doggedeness to the working out of the material, pshychologically very much what was required. Something tried to break free, yet time and again was thwarted. The bind of modern subjectivity?

Quatuor Ebène: Prokofiev, Debussy, and Brahms, 12 December 2011

Wigmore Hall

Prokofiev – String Quartet no.1 in B minor, op.50
Debussy – String Quartet in G minor, op.10
Brahms – String Quartet in A minor, op.51 no.2

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins),
Mathieu Herzog (viola)
Raphaël Merlin (violoncello)


The Quatuor Ebène’s visits to the Wigmore Hall have proved chamber music highlights of their respective seasons for some time now; the present concert did nothing to buck that trend. This was an evening of superlative quartet playing, even by the players’ own exalted standards, a welcome respite from but also challenge to the vile weather currently sweeping the streets of London.

First on was Prokofiev. There is some fine music to his two quartets, especially in this, his first, though it would be difficult to argue that he was the most natural of string quartet composers. Even the key, B minor, is somewhat perverse, as any cellist will tell you. Not that one would have guessed the problems from this performance, in which, the Ebène quite rightly acted as counsel for the defence. The first movement witnessed the identity of the themes and greater structure clearly and keenly delineated. Intriguingly, here and throughout, this was a more highly-strung – if the pun may be forgiven – Prokofiev who emerged than one often hears in his chamber music, partly a matter in this first movement of a fastish tempo but also, crucially, truly dramatic tension. There was excellent, productive contrast between the players acting as soloists and as part of an ensemble, voices emerging therefrom where called upon, and seamlessly blending back into the texture thereafter. Last but not least was a recognition that, in this music as in so much of the rest of his output, Prokofiev’s greatest gift was as a melodist. Then there came as powerful a contrast, without undue exaggeration, as one might wish for between the slow, vaguely Beethovenian introduction to the slow movement and the ‘Vivace’ proper, its thrills as visceral as they were musical. Rhythmic command and ensemble were outstanding, the quartet rightly playing Prokofiev with the abandon and the coherence one would expect in Bartók. This was Prokofiev the modernist with a vengeance, all the more striking since one expects to find him more readily elsewhere. The final ‘Andante’ permitted each player to present – ‘display’ would give entirely the wrong impression – his particular quality to the turning of a melodic phrase, and equally his own individuality of tone. In the broadest of generalisations, one therefore heard the suavity of cellist Raphaël Merlin, the richness of Mathieu Herzog’s viola, the burning intensity of Gabriel Le Magadure on second violin, and a sweet-toned, Cinderella-like lyricism, tinged with Grumiaux-like elegance from Pierre Colombet’s first violin. At least that was the impression at one point, for the changing demands of the music at its more hysterical would at least partially transform those qualities, to highly dramatic effect. Yet above all, this movement was lyrical, in a fashion out of which its form could emerge as naturally as I have yet to hear.

Debussy’s quartet completed the first half. Its first movement opened in a different yet recognisable manner: suavely graceful, the tone more obviously Gallic, though that certainly did not preclude intensity at climaxes. Indeed this could, where appropriate, be Debussy as impassioned as one might hope for – though never more so. Cyclic concision was a hallmark of the entire reading, not least in the transmission of the crucial triplet figure from the first to the second movement, and also of course beyond. That second movement burned with concentrated intensity, albeit with plenty of opportunity, never overlooked, for refreshment in contrast. Unanimity of ensemble never sounded clinical or slick – one can think of a few well-known quartets for whom that would not have been the case – but arose out of straightforwardly excellent, ever-alert quartet-playing. The ‘Andantino’ was given an elegant, sweetly melodic reading, exhibiting a degree of repose, though only relatively so, for it was no less attentive than any other movement to the relationship between detail and the whole. An urgent but satisfying cyclic unification marked the finale, movement and work becoming much more than the sum of their parts. Everything fell into place, though not bureaucratically; it was more a matter of ultimate victory for an Apollonian imperative.

Brahms’s second quartet was heard after the interval. Again, the sonority one heard could be characterised as different and yet the same. (I thought of Hans Sachs advising Walther that a song cannot always be for spring.) The general sound was more deeply Germanic, as one would expect, yet remained blessed by the elegance and clarity the best Franco-Flemish players have often brought to this repertoire. There was more than a hint of Schubert’s ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet, perhaps especially to the first movement’s second subject, though the motivic working unsurprisingly emerged more tightly-knit. Throughout, the players showed themselves heedful of Brahms’s melodic impulse, which engenders its own passions; there is no need to apply anything from without. Again, the Classical and Romantic were held in well-judged balance and tension during the second movement: not in some abstract equilibrium, but according to the particular needs of the material. The relative minor’s intervention was impassioned and not without influential, but the intermezzo-like mood ultimately if uneasily prevailed. Brahms’s Beethovenian inheritance was readily felt in the alternating, conflicting material of the third movement, vividly dramatised. There was even a hint of Haydn in the faster scherzo music, though Schubert again proved the principal ghost in its more wistful counterpart. The finale made clear that, as ever with Brahms, any ‘Hungarian’ colouring is just that: colouring. The real battle to be fought is ‘German’, through and through, its contrapuntal travails here evoking Beethoven and Bach, whilst inevitably looking forward also to Schoenberg. There was charm too, of an undeniably Viennese variety, though tragedy would out.

Performances of the Year, 2010

2010 has been a depressing year politically (can anyone remember one that was not?), but there has been much to celebrate in the arts. I am probably tempting fate by naming performances of the year now, but should any more come along in the next week-and-a-half, all the better. I have limited myself, as last year, to twelve, so averaging once a month. A good few performances have found themselves almost arbitrarily rejected, sometimes on the grounds of offering a broader selection, but all the reviews remain of course. Enough of the caveats; here they are, the order solely chronological, with links to the full reviews:

Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim: Beethoven and Schoenberg, Royal Festival Hall

Daniel Barenboim's survey of the Beethoven piano concertos proved a little more hit and miss than his sonata cycle. However, when the performances came off, they really came off, as in this account of the Third. Nevertheless, it was for Schoenberg, an enduring passion, that Barenboim truly pulled out all the stops. Not only did he and the Staatskapelle Berlin - may they never be forgotten! - provide a superlative performance of the Variations for Orchestra, op.31, something of a Barenboim speciality; Barenboim prefaced it with a straightforwardly brilliant spoken introduction to the work. Did he not already have a multiplicity of careers, I should recommend him as a university lecturer, though the rest of us might soon be out of our jobs...

The Gambler: Royal Opera House

Prokofiev's first opera, bar juvenilia, finally arrived on stage at Covent Garden, and in style! Richard Jones's production looked good, indeed very good, and managed more or less to make sense of the drama's hectic comings and goings. A fine cast had no weak links, but Susan Bickley's Babulenka truly stole the show. As ever with opera, there are simply too many variables to have no cavils at all (why did it have to be sung in English?) but this was a wonderful evening, a true credit to a company which, when it puts its mind to it, can equal any in the world.

Matthias Goerne/Helmut Deutsch: Schubert Lieder, Wigmore Hall

These musicians seem so unerringly excellent that they could readily be taken for granted - that is until one hears a recital such as this, haunted by death yet also ravishingly beautiful. Dramatic power and subtlety were employed in equal measure.

Maurizio Pollini: Chopin, Debussy, and Boulez, Berlin Philharmonie

Pollini had impressed mightly in one of the Royal Festival Hall's two 'birthday' recitals for Chopin. (So had Krystian Zimerman in the other.) This Berlin recital was, if anything, still finer. The complete Chopin Preludes emerged in perfect balance both as a tonal cycle and as a sequence of characteristic pieces. A selection from Debussy's first book proved a sonorous and musical delight; would that Pollini's detractors could have heard such warmth. Finally, Boulez's Second Sonata, as part of the Berlin Staatsoper's celebrations for the composer's eighty-fifth birthday. The work can surely never have been better performed, even by Pollini.

Hommage à Pierre Boulez: Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin

Members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performed under Barenboim and Boulez for this birthday tribute. Messagesquisse and Anthèmes 2 received excellent performances, Hassan Moatez El Molla an exceptionally fine cellist in the former, with Michael Barenboim bravely and convincingly essaying the violin part of the latter. Le Marteau sans maître from the hands of Boulez himself sounded more beautifully, almost Mozartian, than ever: quite mesmerising.

Jerusalem Quartet: Mozart and Janáček, Wigmore Hall

Mozart requires but one thing: perfection. This is what he received here, in as winning a performance of any of his quartets (this time the D minor, KV 521) as I can recall. Janáček's Intimate Letters quartet was equally fortunate, in a performance as intensely dramatic as any of the composer's operas. What an age this is for young (and other!) quartets...

Quatuor Ebène: Mozart and Bartók, Wigmore Hall

The Quatuor Ebène, in another of the Wigmore Hall's delightful Sunday morning coffee concerts, proved every inch the equal of the Jerusalem Quartet. More Mozart: this time the early Divertimento, KV 136/125a, by turns richly expansive and light as quicksilver, was followed by another intense performance of a twentieth-century masterpiece, Bartók’s Second Quartet. The frozen viol-like opening of the final Lento was but one highlight of many.

Trpčeski/RLPO/Petrenko: Schumann, Rachmaninov, and Tchaikovsky, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall

Two young musicians proved that they are worth all the fuss - and more. Simon Trpčeski single-handedly - well, double handedly, with the orchestra and conductor - reignited my enthusiasm for a work I fancied I had heard too many times: Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto. In an outstanding performance of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko proved themselves at least a match for any metropolitan orchestra-and-conductor pairing.

Lewis/CBSO/Nelsons: Wagner, Beethoven, and Dvořák, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall

My other Prom selection is strikingly similar in a number of respects: another outstanding combination of young pianist, young principal conductor, and rejuvenated 'regional' orchestra: Paul Lewis, Andris Nelsons, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Moreover, this was another far-from-outmoded overture-concerto-symphony programme. Lewis and Nelsons provided a wonderful, musicianly account of Beethoven's second concerto, far superior to Lewis's recording in which he is unfortunately lumbered with a dull conductor. The New World Symphony received a performance both thoughtful and exciting, another 'warhorse' fashioned anew.

Elektra: Salzburg Festival, Grosses Festspielhaus

Opera, as I remarked above, is well-nigh impossible to get right in every respect. This performance of Elektra came very close indeed. No star shone more brightly than that of the world's greatest orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic; truly it had to be heard to be believed. Daniele Gatti revelled in the orchestral sound and Strauss's, holding in as fine a balance as I have heard the demands of modernity and sweetness, and never for one moment losing the long musico-dramatic line. Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production proved just as single-minded, devoid of gimmicks, strong on truth. And with a cast including Waltraud Meier, Janice Baird (excellent last-minute replacement for an ailing Iréne Theorin), Eva-Maria Westbroek, Robert Gambill, René Pape, the deal was sealed.

Dame Mitsuko Uchida: Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin, Royal Festival Hall

Utterly different from Pollini's Chopin, Uchida's proved equally distinguished. The late-ish Beethoven E minor sonata received a vigorous and dramatic as well as typically thoughtful account, whilst Uchida captured ths shifting moods of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze to perfection. Her recent recording clearly needs to be sought out.

Piotr Anderszewski: Bach and Schumann, Barbican Hall

Despite my earlier protestations of balance, here was another piano recital I simply could not omit. More Schumann in a fortunate anniversary year: Anderszewski's own arrangement of the Canonic Etudes for pedal piano and the late, disturbing Gesänge der Frühe. (We are, I hear, now blessed by a recording too.) Anderszewski's Bach - here the Fifth and Sixth English Suites - is truly second to none: fiercely Romantic and musically profound. Bach, as ever, emerged as the greatest Romantic and the greatest composer for piano of them all.

Quatuor Ebène - Mozart and Bartók, Wigmore Hall, 20 June 2010

Wigmore Hall

Mozart – Divertimento for string quartet in D major, KV 136/125a
Bartók – String Quartet no.2, op.17

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)
Mathieu Herzog (viola)
Raphaël Merlin (violoncello)

What a pleasure it was to welcome back the Quatuor Ebène to the Wigmore Hall. This Sunday morning ‘coffee concert’ proved every inch the equal in quality to a full-scale evening performance. First came Mozart: KV 136/125a. What’s in a name? Sometimes everything, sometimes not so much. I am not sure one should read too much into the programme leaflet’s description of a divertimento as opposed to a string quartet: this D major work can be called either and I hedged my bets above by following another possibility, ‘divertimento for string quartet’. At any rate, the Ebènes gave a performance utterly without condescension, fully worthy of the elevated title ‘string quartet’, whilst also paying homage – as, after all, does so much mature Mozart – to the divertimento tradition. The opening Allegro was full of life, nicely shaded, with some truly beautiful soft playing. There was mystery in the minor mode and pizzicati of the development section and throughout a properly vocal treatment of phrasing. The richly expansive Andante captured perfectly the balance between stillness and motion, achieving both and elevating both to a higher level. Again, the players’ dynamic shading was near miraculous, without the slightest hint of fussiness. And yes, there was that vital – in more than one – sense of the outdoor serenade. Finally came the Haydnesque Presto: helter-skelter yet with poise retained. Above all, it was fun.

From a wonderful early work to an acknowledged masterpiece: Bartók’s second quartet. I was struck immediately by a certain French – or at least Franco-Flemish – quality to the string playing. This later showed itself to be not merely a matter of house style, but also, perhaps more so, a particular characterisation of the first movement. Echoes or pre-echoes of Debussy, Ravel, perhaps even Prokofiev – and not necessarily in their string quartet writing – drew us into a harmonic world that suggested the exploratory cosmopolitanism of Bartók’s Four Orchestral Pieces, op.12. Also striking from the outset was the marriage, indeed mutual incitement, of unanimity and individual voice, both of which developed according to the music’s dictates. The intensity of climaxes and would-be climaxes in this opening Andante brought out kinship with the Second Viennese School, again reminding one of the op.12 pieces. Moreover, and I almost wish I could find something negative to say but cannot, there was a well nigh perfect relationship between motivic integrity and overall structure. Each contributed to the other. Raphaël Merlin’s cello tone more than once brought Pierre Fournier to mind: suave, understated even, but there was no denying the power of the bass line where necessary.

The second movement immediately announced a different ‘character’. Magyar urgency and irregularity dramatised within a framework of absolute, yet never clinical, rhythmic precision. Crucially, the music sang. Wildness within overall structure once again ensured that each contributed to the other: a quintessentially modernist dialectic. The frozen viol-like opening of the final Lento truly took one’s breath away, likewise the gradual thaw. An especially impressive passage heard sorrow from Pierre Colombet’s plangent first violin, intensified by Gabriel Le Magadure’s second violin response, still further by Colombet in his response, whereupon Mathieu Herzog’s viola and Merlin’s cello could also join the throng: the magical effect of a celestial choir swelling, but behind it a great deal of consideration as to how every phrase should sound and contribute to the whole. Quiet intensity was every bit as expressive as its more obviously passionate counterpart. This was a memorable performance indeed.

Quatuor Ebène - Brahms, Bartók, and Schubert, Wigmore Hall, 30 October 2009

Wigmore Hall

Brahms – String Quartet in C minor, op.51 no.1
Bartók – String Quartet no.3
Schubert - String Quartet in D minor, D 810, ‘Death and the Maiden’

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins)
Mathieu Herzog (viola)
Raphaël Merlin (violoncello)

Fresh from receiving a Gramophone award for their disc of works by Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel, the players of the Quatuor Ebene displayed an equal level of excellence in this programme of string quartets by Brahms, Bartók, and Schubert. My sole reservation concerned the first Brahms quartet: not in terms of the performance but the work itself. Dyed-in-the-wool Brahmsian that I be, I still find this an uningratiating piece. Nevertheless, in the struggle to make quartet writing out of Brahms’s difficult music, the Ebène came as close as I can recall hearing. The febrile opening proved Janus-faced, as Brahms is wont to do; already there were hints of Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht and beyond, but there was also Beethovenian motivic insistency. Every note was made to count and to sound utterly necessary, the movement’s concision evoking a celebrated predecessor, probably the most celebrated predecessor, in the tonality of C minor: the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The Romanze is easier to warm to, at least for me. Despite its deceptive (relative) simplicity, it is just as tightly constructed, the Ebène’s performance producing considerable tension. There were, however, moments of (relative) relaxation, the beauty of Raphaël Merlin’s cello line almost looking forward to the slow movement of the second piano concerto. The players imparted an ideal sense of quiet inexorability to the third movement. Here the inner parts especially teemed with motivic invention, not least in their strangely unerotic quality of their chromaticism: chaste, though Nietzsche might maliciously have referred again to the ‘melancholy of impotence’. The fury of the musicians’ initial attack upon the finale was sustained throughout in a way that recalled Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. Thematic links with previous movements were both clear and necessary. As Schoenberg recognised, this is a standard-bearing work of near-total thematicism. Brahms’s system cannot but inspire awe, as it certainly did here, even if affection is more difficult to muster.

Schoenberg and the other composers of the Second Viennese School also stand close to Bartók’s astounding third quartet. Yet the voice is always Bartók’s own, and that voice was certainly to be heard in this performance. The frozen opening set up melody as the agent for the thaw, yet severity rightly remained, a tightrope between astringency and relaxation successfully navigated in a magnificently tense reading. A Boulezian marriage between exactitude and expressiveness was conducted, especially during the Seconda parte, rhythm and melody co-equals as driving forces behind the music. The players conjured up a veritable kaleidoscope of sounds, never for its own sake, always at the service of the music. I was very much taken by the almost cinematic, freeze-frame quality to the slow down for the Ricapitulazione della prima parte, a developmental recapitulation if ever there were one. What was surely the Bergian – Lyric Suite – inspiration for the scurrying music of the coda was transformed into an utterly Bartókian frenzied outburst of rhythm and melody. This must be one of Bartók’s very greatest works; that was certainly how it sounded on this occasion.

The final work on the programme, though there would also be heard one of the quartet’s customary encores, was the Death and the Maiden quartet. A strikingly low-vibrato opening statement – on dramatic, not ideological grounds – was followed by ever-so-brief consolation, itself leading to vehemence, setting up an almost schizophrenic opposition that would characterise the first movement. This was not comfortable Schubert, which is not to say that it lacked cultivation, only that cultivation was treated as a dramatic tool rather than a given. Intonation, as throughout the programme, was flawless, likewise the unanimity of attack. I do not think I have heard the dactylic kinship of the second movement’s theme with the slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony quite so clearly enunciated and meaningfully explored, the sense of a cortège, of movement as well as sadness, so unerringly placed. The variations were very much a journey, a Winterreise. Here we heard undeniable high Romanticism, albeit without the slightest impression of inappropriateness, of being forced, and always within an iron-clad, ‘classical’ command of structure. The growth of intensity during the fifth variation was staggering, not least in its resolution. Young though he might have been, Schubert was raging against the dying of the light. The scherzo opened with a rhythmic insistency that presaged the anvils of Nibelheim, whilst its trio provided finely-judged continuation and contrast, exquisite, but not for its own sake. Finally, the closing Presto proved a veritable dance of death: relentless, but also, crucially, inviting. Such, despite the unfurling whirlwind, was the sweetness of tone from Pierre Colombet’s first violin that it might have been the Devil himself who drew one in.