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Emily Carr House
July 27, 2006
"You listen to four sensible persons conversing, you profit from their discourse, and you get to know the peculiar properties of their several instruments."
As a description of the experience of hearing a string quartet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's is as good as any - and better than most. However, most people's experience of chamber music today is in concert halls, where getting to know the "peculiar properties" of the instruments is made somewhat more difficult by distance.
Which made hearing the Emily Carr String Quartet play in the birthplace of their eponym a particular treat; when one is but a few feet away from the players there is a sheer physicality to the listening experience which simply cannot be found in the concert hall.
Of course, from the players' point of view, it must be somewhat disconcerting (particularly if, as one member of the quartet remarked, your mother is sitting in the front row) and there is certainly "nowhere to hide": any minor blemishes on tone production, intonation or ensemble will be magnified by the audience's proximity.
Not only that, they will probably hear your breathing, too.
For me, these small indications that there are living, breathing people producing the music are all a part of the listening experience itself, reminding the audience that, yes these musicians may be capable of truly wondrous feats, transporting us to different places and times, but they are still human, like us.
Thursday's final recital in the series consisted of just two works: Mozart's Clarinet Quintet and Schubert's "Rosamunde" Quartet.
Mozart wrote three major works for the relatively recently invented clarinet and every one of them is a masterpiece, perfect in its way.
Jennifer Christensen joined the quartet for a lovely performance of the quintet. The closeness of the players was very revealing, individual lines being heard more clearly than is usual, yet the five musicians melded their sound together beautifully.
Did they "push" the development section of the first movement a little? Possibly, but if they did, they certainly swept this listener along with them. The slow movement was quite gorgeous. The contrast between the minuet and first trio (played by the strings only) seemed even greater than usual; the second trio featured some delicious rubato. The theme-and-variation finale bounced merrily along in the main, although the third variation featured an eloquent viola lament from Mieka Kohut; the penultimate, slow variation was heavenly and the cheery final variation simply brimmed with life.
Franz Schubert, as is well-known, had a miraculous gift for melody; more remarkably, he seems able to construct a memorable melody from a mere handful of notes. The Entr'acte from the incidental music to Rosamunde is a good example: the opening bar of the theme is immediately recognisable, yet consists of just two notes, the first played three times, the second twice.
Despite his amazing faculty for melody, Schubert was never averse to recycling an old one; in this case, his use of the entr'acte's theme for the slow movement of his a minor quartet, D.804 has resulted in its being known as the "Rosamunde" quartet, although this rather belies its overall nature, which is far less sunny - hardly surprising, as it was written during the same severe illness which also saw the composition of the "Death and the Maiden" quartet.
The Emily Carrs turned in a fine performance of music which has tended to be overshadowed by its siblings - even though, rather surprisingly, it was the only one of Schubert's chamber works to be published during his lifetime.
The poignant opening led to a dramatic first movement, with the conflicting moods well conveyed. The forceful development was the only time in the afternoon when the playing and the acoustic conspired to hover on the brink of stridency - but not, happily, to fall into it. The slow movement was all a Schubert slow movement should be; the unusually sombre minuet danced, but not frivolously; the finale, with the shadows finally banished, featured some nicely pointed playing and closed the concert in exuberant fashion.
Most noticeably, despite the quartet's relative youth (they gave their first public performance just three months ago) they are already producing a well-balanced and coherent sound. Quartets tend to come and go - I hope this one stays the course, as they have considerable potential.
In between the movements of both works, Jan Ross, curator of Emily Carr House, read aptly-chosen extracts from Emily's Journal, "Hundreds and Thousands".
Although sheer economics dictate that this kind of intimate event will never become common, for the two dozen people fortunate enough to have been present on Thursday, it was a musical experience unlikely soon to be forgotten.
All of the players involved belong to what me might call the "up and coming" generation of Victorian musicians; the future of chamber music in Victoria is undoubtedly in safe hands.
MiV HomeLast modified: Fri Jul 28 12:19:45 PDT 2006