The musicians were Benjamin Nabarro violin, Claudia Ajmone-Marsan violin, Rachel Roberts viola, Gemma Rosefield cello
I had seen and enjoyed Ensemble 360 performing op131 late in October last year, before lockdowns 2 and 3. I’m not sure why they were performing it again so soon afterwards but it is a wonderful work and I’m certainly not complaining.
The Op 18 no 6 is an interesting work – Haydn-esque in many ways but with a strange slow introduction, ‘La Malinconia’, to the finale, which seems to each across almost to the late quartets. A witty Allegretto then follows – almost like a quick waltz – but with, half-way through, a reminder of the ‘Malinconia’ music. Ensemble 360 played it with energy and, where needed, lightness of touch.
Op 131 followed after a slightly inconsequential reading of one of Beethoven’s letters that didn’t really tell us anything about either work, instead informing us he was rather keen on royal honours and notice, even as he was writing the late quartets in the final year of his life….. I was perhaps a little less impressed by the performance of the op 131 compared to what I heard last year – it sounded, to my ears anyway, a little scrappy at times, with players slightly out-of-synch with each other – maybe playing this work twice in a day is a bit too tough for them (I went to the 7pm performance; there was also a 1pm one….). But there was massive energy in the final movement that drove all before it. The first movement sounded at times a bit too bright and forward, not introspective enough or slow enough (Wagner said “nothing more melancholy has ever been expressed in sound”, but the theme and variations in the Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile was well characterised (I loved the loud plonks on the cello!_
John's musical journey 