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First Unitarian Church
June 24, 2012
Rarely, since this was apparently the coldest June on record, the sun shone through the plain glass windows in the sinuously beautiful building which hosts EKSM. The curving planes of the church's overlapping ceilings promising a good acoustic environment, a padded seat, a full audience and, with the outdoor greenery basking in its dappled light, the sense of being part of the larger scene rather than stuck indoors, all contributed to a pleasant sense of anticipation as we waited for the musicians to emerge.
The programme opened with Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor, Opus 80. Laura Backstrom, the cellist, provided a helpful introduction by reminding us that this quartet was written a mere couple of months after the devastating loss of Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny - calling it "relentlessly sad and beautiful."
And it was so. The strident anguish of the opening violin tremolos immediately evoked the incoherent pain of losing someone beloved, the punctuating tragically lyric theme from the viola serving only as a wandering thought before succumbing to the monster of grief. Back and forth like shattering storm winds that blast, then die back spent, then start up again, reaching, reaching towards some unattainable release. Then, the beautiful assurance of the cello entry, suggesting perhaps the promise of an underlying strength or faith that may provide a safe container for all this tumult of feeling. Followed by yet another outburst of trembling, a vivid and awesome attack. This is not an easy movement, but from the first bars, the competence of the violins was so impressive, their bowing so decisive, yet never forced, that I felt able to trust them in their engagement with such elemental forces - I have heard various renderings that made me want to cover my ears in dismay.
The second movement, also marked allegro, began with a new and determined vigour, a couple of plucked phrase endings hinting at a lightening of spirit. The sonority became less jagged as the viola introduced a calmer mood, soon to be exploded yet again by the possessed bowing of the violins. Yet those little plucked endings again seemed to take the hook out of the soul of grief.
The third movement introduced a new mood, an almost exhausted peace. Deeply nostalgic and tender passages, exquisitely fragile violin, clean spare tone, warmth building in intensity as if, for a moment, the actual death has been forgotten in the pleasure of the memories. Then something darker and more melancholy reasserts itself. The cello offers a summons to hope, answered by an angelic sweetness in the beautiful closing notes of the violin.
The fourth movement sets out with a get-up-and-go, moving -on-after-the-storm kind of attitude. Strident chords from the violins still punctuate moments of tenderness, but as the tempo increases the final effect is of an assertion of the will to live, a hint of joy.
After the intermission there was an audible exhalation of pleasure as the quartet of strings, now expanded to seven musicians walked on for Beethoven's first attempt at a mixed consort. I imagined that it was the unfamiliar sight of Steve Denroche's magnificently curling French horn and the prospect of some really exciting sounds from it. This septet, opus 20, in Eb major, became very popular in its time, yet Beethoven never repeated the experiment, preferring to write string quartets or piano trios instead. In six movements, it is in fact an extended serenade to the Kaiserin, Maria Theresa.
The overall flavour of this work is one of light hearted pleasure, beginning with the opening dance of the violin's melodic line, picked up by the clarinet, which in turn is shadowed by the horn. The clarinet is like a shaft of sunlight, penetrating the cosmos of creation inaugurated by the superbly confident violins - each clarinet entry seems like the point of it all. With its three registers and incredibly fluid agility , it is like the voice of homo sapiens in puckish or harmonious mood. In the second movement the clarinet is still the spine of the elegantly moving forms of violin, cello and bass, repeated notes on the horn auguring a new dawn, violins shimmering like light on water.
The third movement has the horn and clarinet in playful mood with fast little figures, while the fourth movement lost a bit of momentum as the clarinet took a more modest role, with long tones replacing the fire of earlier appearances. The violin's role seemed to be to express the Idea, with the clarinet giving it Form, and when the cello entered with something new, it turned out to be not a new start, but a conclusion.
The fifth (scherzo) saw the horn taking on a stronger role, acting less as a shadow and more of a big brother to the clarinet, the cello lyrical. In the final andante the lower range of the clarinet, always a bit surprising, summons an assertive response from the horn, but before you know it is irrepressibly flying again, the bassoon modestly underpinning everything, the horn making dramatic calls until a moment of balanced harmony suddenly shifts to an arresting solo cadenza from the violin. After a brief (and beautiful) respite in the realm of the Idea, we are summoned back to earth in ascending horn arpeggios, ending the serenade in an uplifting flourish.
The Septet is very easy to enjoy as it is so skilfully interweaves an unusual consort of instruments. I can see why Beethoven chose to arrange it later as a clarinet trio, however, as the septet arrangement did not exploit the potential of the horn, nor did it ever achieve the passionate intensity of the Mendelssohn quartet. I noticed on EKSM's website that the programme originally called for the Beethoven to precede the Mendelssohn, and I would have preferred to hear them in that order. Still when it comes to whether ordered pleasures are best experienced as aperitif or digestif to profoundly moving quests, the jury will never reach a unanimous verdict, I suppose.
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