Elias Quartet, 27/5/21; Wigmore Hall

This (evening) recital was enjoyable – the quartet were playing Haydn (Op 33, no 5), Schumann (Op 41, no 3) and some Scottish folk song pieces written by one of the Quartet players, Duncan Grant. I particularly enjoyed the Haydn; within the perhaps limited frame of reference and the scope of elegance and wit that 18th century musical entertainment demanded, Haydn is always finding new things to say, so that I feel a sense of anticipation as each movement starts – so, OK, how is he going to deal with THIS! The finale in particular of this quartet is counter-intuitive and not the usual romp one might have expected. The performance was seemed sensitive to the different elements of light and shade in the work, and sounded, as far as I could tell, not knowing it well, very good – the musicians seemed to really dig into the work with understanding and enthusiasm. The Schumann  – I have to say I find this quite often with this composer –was a bit of a bore; the combination of obsessively repeated short phrases and rather droopy early Romantic themes sent me drifting off to sleep at the end of both the second and third movements – or maybe I was just exhausted after the LSO performance, but I can never imagine doing this with Haydn. The recital finished with the Scottish folk tunes, which were lovely, and interestingly arranged – the string quartet was genuinely adding something to the music beyond what a couple of folk musicians could reasonably offer (which is not to disparage folk musicians but they would find it {happy to be proved wrong} difficult to match the complex sonorities of a string quartet). Interestingly I’ve just bought a recording of the Maxwell Quartet of Haydn’s Op 74 quartets who seem to have got there first – I’ve just been listening to their arrangements of folk songs like the Burning of the Piper’s Hut for string quartet coupled with the Haydn!