Christopher’s Classics – The New Zealand String Quartet with Serenity Thurlow
The Piano, Christchurch – 23 August 2018
How often over the last twenty-or-so months have I sat in this still new Christchurch venue and been moved, inspired, surprised, overwhelmed, awed, or generally carried away by music and music-making of varying degrees of charisma and communication by composers and players who really have something special to say?
Cellist Rolf Gjelsten with the NZSQ Photo: supplied
There are memories of some very special moments indeed and, if this New Zealand String Quartet concert may not end up being among the best, there was, even so, much to admire and to provoke thought.
In Beethoven’s F Minor Quartet, the NZSQ’s impressive unity of ensemble also managed to allow an expressive freedom and flexibility of phrasing, especially in the first movement.
And the group’s animated commitment to the contrasts of texture and articulation in Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 made a persuasive case for the piece’s adventurous daring.
That same belief in difficult (from a listener’s point of view) music was also evident in the performance of Webern’s Six Bagatelles.
And, finally, Mozart’s String Quintet in C Major, where the quartet was joined by violist Serenity Thurlow, brought comforting and untroubled relief from the extreme demands of what preceded it.
But somehow this programme wasn’t as convincing as one might have expected.
Although first violinist Helene Pohl introduced the Beethoven quartet, stressing its extreme contrasts of dynamics, tempo, mood, etc., I felt that these contrasts were not made present enough in the performance.
From the outset, a certain homogenous blending of texture struck me in comparison to the character and individuality that Beethoven has built into each of the four textural strands.
The first and third movements certainly demonstrated playing of energy and vitality, but I sensed a certain generalisation in the expression, almost as if the players have reached a point of over-familiarity with a work that’s been in their repertoire for many years and in which they can no longer find anything new.
Or perhaps it’s my fault and that the over-familiarity is something which causes my own need for an exaggerated projection of Beethoven’s expressive invention.
Whatever the case, I can’t help comparing this interpretation with that of another recent Beethoven performance (of an earlier quartet) that I attended where the work came to life in a much more compelling way.
Although I’m not prepared to place any blame for my problems with Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 on the NZSQ’s performance, I confess to finding it a rather impenetrable piece.
As much as I love and respond to so much of Bartók’s other music, I still have problems with some of his quartets.
Admittedly, this composer’s six string quartets are generally considered almost as central to the quartet repertoire as Beethoven’s, but they are far from an easy listen.
Some years ago I even bought a score of this second quartet in order to help my understanding of its mysteries, but I still have much work to do before its secrets are revealed.
Possibly other members of last night’s audience have reached a more advanced level of understanding of the work, but the interval and post-concert conversations certainly centred on the work’s difficulties for the listener.
The Piano Photo: Supplied
The NZSQ’s performance was striking for its commitment and mastery of the work’s idiom but, again, I can’t help recalling a performance of the same composer’s Fourth String Quartet just a couple of weeks ago at the Aspen Festival where its originality, audacity and expressive impact were simply astonishing.
The Fourth is a very different work to the Second, but, even so, in Aspen I was grateful for a performance that helped me cross a barrier; I just need a similar revelation in some of Bartók’s other quartets.
Then, as if to ensure that we didn’t sink back into any sort of complacency, the next work on the programme was Anton Webern’s Six Bagatelles for String Quartet.
Have these six one-page miniatures acquired a sort of quirky novelty value rather than an ability to move us or to stimulate our intellects? Certainly their experimental nature has never faded despite their more-that-one-hundred-year life so far.
The range of articulation and technical effects required is extreme – far more than is found in works of much longer duration. A glance at the score reveals more ink devoted to instructions than to the notes themselves.
But, despite the saturation of such markings in the score and of the intense compression of the composer’s invention, the NZSQ played these pieces with real flair and with all the seeming ease of a Mozart minuet.
And a work by Mozart was the final piece on the programme.
His C Major Quintet is one of his finest chamber works with a first movement bigger in scale than any other instrumental piece that he wrote.
I have already mentioned that this work allowed us to return to our comfort zones after the challenges of Bartók and Webern but, for me, the performance was just a bit too comfortable, seeming a little relaxed and merely pleasant after the works it followed, despite the players’ unfailing vitality.
However enjoyable this performance was, and enjoy it we did, maybe it would have been better at the start of the evening where Mozart’s own brand of originality and progressiveness would have had more impact before the more extreme demands of what was to come.
Overall then, a challenging programme and, although the playing was technically and consistently masterful, it didn’t quite project the fullest expression of the composers’ creativity.
Serenity Thurlow Photo: Simon Clark
Christchurch viola player Serenity Thurlow proved a superb addition to the NZSQ’s personnel in the quintet in a concert that maintained the impressive quality of the Christopher’s Classics series.
Mention of this series reminds me that the concert also included an on-stage acknowledgement of Christopher Marshall’s contribution to chamber music in Christchurch as well as his support for musicians throughout New Zealand and beyond, and for which he was the well-deserved recipient of this year’s Chamber Music NZ Marie Vandewart Memorial Award.
