ABERDEEN CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERTS
THE SANCTUARY, QUEEN’S CROSS CHURCH, ABERDEEN
Monday 21st February 2022
ELMORE QUARTET:
Xander Croft first violin
Pijus Jonušas second violin
Ben Kearsley viola
Felix Hughes cello
PROGRAMME:
Schubert, Quartettsatz in c minor D703 (Quartet No. 12)
Britten, String Quartet No.3 in G major Op. 94
Beethoven, String Quartet No. 15 Op. 132 in a minor
A gratifyingly large audience turned out to Queen’s Cross Church for the first full evening concert in just over two years. The last such concert before the difficulties caused by Covid 19, took place on Monday 10th February, 2020 when the Engegärd Quartet from Norway presented a programme including Quartets by Sibelius and Greig. This was very well received so we were hoping that Monday’s concert by the Elmore Quartet would prove equally excellent. We were not to be disappointed.
The Elmore Quartet opened with a delectable performance of Schubert’s Quartettsatz in c minor, sometimes called his Quartet No. 12. It consists only of an opening movement. There is a small part of a second movement in existence, but the work, like one of his Symphonies remained Unfinished. All three of the works in today’s programme are landmarks in the development of string quartet language. Schubert did not work out his movement according to the strict rules of sonata argument. The ‘Beckmessers’ of musical theory will point out that ‘he goes to the wrong key’. However, what Schubert does is to create a startling contrast between his dark stormy opening and the gloriously sunlit lyrical melody that follows and then another not quite so bright yet still beautiful lyrical passage. The players of the Elmore Quartet captured both ideas particularly well, first the dark shuddering commotion of the strings working excitedly together and then with first violin Xander Croft taking the lead, reminding us of Schubert the master songsmith. But this melody was never a song, it remains the special rapture of this quartet movement, made even more delightful when Xander Croft made the repeat soar aloft. His playing was a fine hint of what he was going to do in the third movement of Britten’s String Quartet No. 3.
If Schubert does something new with his Quartettsatz, Britten takes innovation in quartet writing to a far more advanced level. All three pieces in Monday’s programme were superb but although Britten’s Quartet No.3 is about as far from ‘easy listening’ as it is possible to get, the Elmore’s performance of Britten’s work was the ultimate high point of the whole concert. Not only was the playing uniquely clean, clear and precise, they also drew out every last iota of emotion that Britten had written into a work in which he brought himself face to face with the approaching end of his life.
The opening movement is called Duets, and in fact there are many two instrument combinations in the movement. However, it was the duetting of second violin Pijus Jonušas and viola player Ben Kearsley that was so amazingly, can I say beautiful, about this music? The details of the playing were amazing even the little points of pizzicato stood out so expressively.
There are two fast movements, Ostinato and later Burlesque where the performers were really on fire. In the Burlesque in particular, a title that might suggest fun and comedy, the players depicted the sense of rage that Britten was, I think, wanting to express. I have already mentioned the third movement entitled Solo in which Xander Croft truly excelled. In the finale Britten seems to come to terms with what life’s cards have dealt him, thus the title ‘La Serenissima’. I know this refers to Venice where the movement was composed, but there is a sense of acceptance too and the Elmore players delivered the all encompassing feeling of sadness in this music.
After the interval, we delighted in a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 Op. 132. I read up about the opening movement only to find that musicologists e.g. Roger Scruton and others had three totally different way of describing how it worked. The most accurate seemed to be that it was in modified sonata form. Does it really matter? Should we not just accept that Beethoven was also reaching towards a new quartet language. I loved the way that the players mirrored one another with the various motifs that move constantly through the piece. Beethoven and the Elmore players took us on a wonderfully colourful journey across a musical landscape in this movement.
It is the third movement that is meant to be really special, but I love the second movement. Is it a minuet or perhaps a more strong footed country dance. That was what came through especially in the trio section with its sense of a village band including a hurdy-gurdy. It is of course a stringed instrument and not to be confused with a barrel organ.
I went on You Tube and listened to some fourteen recordings of the Quartet in the week before the concert. What with the weather and the threats from Covid there was not much else to do. In some recordings, the Adagio chorale sections proved rather desolate and even tiresome. With the Elmore’s performance today however, I finally understood why both T. S Eliot and Aldous Huxley had described this music as ‘heavenly’. Their blend of strings in both harmony and counterpoint made the music totally delicious and utterly compelling, dare I say like the precursors of Mahler’s famous Adagios? Of the fourteen different recordings I had listened to, I have to say that today’s was pretty much the best. I loved the light footed delicacy of the faster sections too. Then the short march and introduction led into a joyous finale with a coda in which Felix Hughes’s cello really sang out. This was a wonderfully lively and cheerful conclusion to a splendid performance. It did not need an encore, because in a sense, this is exactly what the coda was!