St. Lawrence String Quartet
January 15, 2008
Cincinnati Chamber Music Socity
- Violin
- Geoff Nuttall
- Violin
- Scott St. John
- Viola
- Leslie Robertson
- Cello
- Christopher Costanza
Program
- Haydn
- String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No.2
- R. Murray Schafer
- String Quartet No. 3
- Beethoven
- String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, and Grosse Fugue, Op. 133
Bravo!
The Cincinnati Chamber Music Society consistently brings world-class chamber music groups to our city. I have grown used to impeccable performances of great music, with high standards for ensemble, intonation and musical expression. I expect new, unfamiliar works to be performed with understanding, conviction and enthusiasm. When someone dares to play the great late Beethoven quartets, I expect the kind of devotion of their entire being that this music demands. All this, is ordinary. However, even within this milieu, the performance the St. Lawrence String Quartet was stunning.
To be honest, I had some trepidation when I saw the program. Like almost all the string quartet concerts, it begins with Haydn or Mozart, followed by something new, and then a large romantic piece after the intermission. My partner thinks Haydn is more appropriate for the drawing room than for the concert hall, and, although I don’t agree, I have some sympathy for that point of view. I don’t know much about Schafer’s music, but I have no particular enthusiasm for pieces in which the performers wander about the concert space, or start yelling expletives in the middle of the music. I usually react with suspicion that the composer is attempting to divert my attention from some fairly boring and banal ideas. Finally, there is the Grosse Fugue, along with its 5 movement prelude. I have sat through some very long concerts that ended with this huge, strident, barely coherent monument.
However, by intermission, I was looking for to it.
After the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven left his public behind. His writing became increasingly idiosyncratic, with sudden changes of mood and bizarre structure. Besides, the guy was deaf. He shows almost no sympathy for the limits of the instruments, or what they actually sound like. The music goes on forever, and some of it makes almost no sense. I have trouble believing that many of his contemporaries had any understanding of this music. They almost worshipped genius, and they knew that Beethoven had demonstrated greatness in the past. I imagine them listening the Grosse Fugue with the same glazed look that you sometimes still see in modern audiences listening to Schoenberg. They listen with the underlying conviction that, somehow, it must be good, but in reality, they are totally mystified. This music presents a space so vast and complex that almost impossible not to get lost in it. It is near lunacy. It is also transcendent.
These guys pulled it off. The fortissimo passages in the early part of the fugue, where everybody is sawing away as hard as they can, were ferocious and exciting. The sudden mood swings were thoroughly convincing. The peculiar arch of the structure somehow made sense. Genius was present. I was enthralled.
Actually, I almost gave them a standing ovation for the Haydn. It was played with an almost outrageous extravagance, though never quite outside the bounds of what could work in the polite, late eighteenth century style. The tempo was never strict: it was full of small, expressive irregularities, perhaps too small to be considered rubato, but the ensemble was so clean that you almost didn’t notice them. The little jokes, beginning with the first theme of the opening movement, were practically pratfalls. There is a passage in the slow movement where the first violin has an elaborate countermelody to the simple theme. It was played with a wild romanticism, and yet so quietly that it never covered the primary melody. The playing managed to be both over the top and understated. It was Haydn informed by the lunacy of late Beethoven, and perhaps, of Monty Python. It left me thirsting for more. Even my partner liked it.
The Schafer Quartet demands less restraint, except, of course in the quiet passages, where you must be very, very, very restrained. It begins with a long quiet cello solo, full of double stops, one string playing glissandos around a sustained open string. The cellist, alone on stage, is soon joined by the off stage viola, who later wanders in to join him. The violinists begin playing in the rear of the auditorium, and wander down the aisles to join the group. Soon after they are finally all on stage together, the music becomes sharply rhythmic, punctuated by percussive yelling from the performers. The piece ends quietly, with the first violinist walking off stage playing a simple ostenato, and ending with him almost out of hearing, while the others quietly repeat a quiet C major chord. This chord gave new meaning to the repeating figure in the first violin, and it caught me totally off guard. Such a traditional ending! It worked beautifully.
The quartet was played with conviction. Much to my surprise, I liked the yelling. It worked musically. It was exiting. In the quiet section that followed, the unisons, on pitches (quarter tones) that I did not recognize, were clean and pure. The effect was quite magical.
Was it great music that will stand the test of time? Perhaps, though of this I am not so sure. I enjoyed it immensely, but I suspect that I would enjoy listening to these guys play Tidily Winks.
The concert ended with an encore: a “thin mint”, as the man who played first violin in the Haydn described it, with reference to the famous Monty Python skit. It was a short piece Dvorak, a satisfying conclusion to the feast.
© 2008 J.P. Lund