HAYDN Op.33 no.4 in B flat major; DVOŘÁK Selection from Cypresses, B11; ELGAR Early quartet fragments; MENDELSSOHN Op.44 no.1 in D major – Victoria String Quartet
I have now got my hearing fully restored. How nice to hear things properly….
As you can see this was at the Stoller Hall, part of Chetham’s Music School but having its own independent life as a concert venue as well. It seats about 500 people and has great acoustics, with a platform large enough to seat a chamber orchestra as well as not being too large for a solo performer. It was very far from full for this concert though – 100 people maybe at most
I felt the Quartet was a bit under-powered and not always fully together, even though the 2nd violin is David Creed, otherwise leader of the Opera North Orchestra, currently immersed in Parsifal, as below. I felt the leader didn’t have enough attack in the faster movements and somehow felt quieter voiced than the other quartet members.
The Haydn was wonderfully quirky – the first movement martial-sounding but never obvious, and constantly twirling off in unexpected directions; the finale great fun, but suddenly veering into pizzicato near to the end and coming suddenly to a final halt. The Dvorak pieces on the other hand I found rather tedious. Why not have a Mozart or another Haydn quartet instead?
The Elgar fragments were – well – fragmented. The most substantial piece was the early (aged 21) Elgar piece played first, somehow immediately more engaging than the Dvorak songs but not really recognisably Elgar – Mendelssohn came to mind. The last two fragments though were mature Elgar and immediately recognisable – and indeed the last piece was an early version of the end of the scherzo and the first subject of the slow movement from the First Symphony. Interestingly, after proceeding more or less exactly like the symphony for most of its length, Elgar suddenly chosen a different rather trivial melody for the second subject of the slow movement; the fragment then comes to an abrupt end, as though Elgar recognised something more was needed
I thoroughly enjoyed the Mendelssohn – the quartet is in his ‘Italian Symphony’ mode. I’ve long been prejudiced against Mendelssohn – the Wagner-generated image of Mendelssohn as a “superficial” musician, and an emotional lightweight, took hold early on in my life and I’ve never really shaken it off. But this was well-crafted, enjoyable, foot-tappable music which I really found myself engaging with. I bought myself a recording of the 0p 44 quartets immediately!
John's musical journey 