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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 30, 2014
Whatever his other attributes, few would claim that Arturo Toscanini was much of an advocate of contemporary music, particularly by composers from his adopted land. Certainly in the later part of his career, his conducting of music by living composers tended to be restricted to Italian composers - composers who were mostly obscure at the time and have lapsed further into obscurity since.
One notable exception to this was his directing, on November 5, 1938, the first performance of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, the composer's own string-orchestra arrangement of the second movement of his String Quartet, Op.11. Toscanini helped cement the piece's place in the repertoire when he took it on tour to both South American and Europe.
It is fascinating, although pointless, to speculate on whether performances of the quartet itself would have been more, or less, frequent without the existence of the Adagio for Strings and Toscanini's advocacy of it.
It cannot be denied, however, that performances of the original quartet, while not exactly falling into the category of "hen's teeth", are nonetheless rather less common that performances of the Adagio.
Which made the presence of Barber's Quartet, in its entirety, in the programme of the Dover Quartet's Victoria debut on Wednesday all the more welcome.
With their reputation as board-sweepers at the 2013 Banff Competition preceding them, expectations were high and not disappointed: throughout the evening, the Dovers played with a superb unanimity of tone and ensemble so sharp you could cut yourself on it.
The performance started as it meant to continue, grabbing the music by the scruff of its neck, the opening pages angular, dramatic and forceful, before yielding to the hymn-like second subject which had, at least on this occasion, echoes of Charles Ives.
The slow movement, in its original guise, is revealed as dealing more with private than public tragedy; here the quartet's playing verged on the miraculous, leading to an almost unbearably tense climax.
Barber withdrew his original finale and substituted the existing brief recapitulation of themes from the first movement; the Dovers gave it a wonderful volatility although the abrupt ending, after only a couple of minutes, always tends to result in a brief hiatus before the applause, as if the audience were thinking "oh, is that it?"
Mendelssohn's Op.44 quartets - a set of three - were composed during one of the sunniest periods of his life: recently married, with a newborn son, his work as both composer and conductor achieving international recognition.
It was with the second of the set (in the published sequence, it was actually composed first) that the Dover Quartet closed Wednesday's concert, in a reading which could scarcely be improved upon.
The serious opening movement was given exactly the right amount of dramatic weight and the tranquil second subject was quite delectable. The scherzo is not inhabited by Mendelssohnian fairies - pixies perhaps, or leprechauns; either way, it was imbued with tremendous energy and dazzling interplay between the instruments.
The slow movement was one long, lovely cantabile, while the finale was fiery and propulsive, with episodes of calm between the storms.
A tremendous close to the evening, it brought the audience to their feet.
The programme opened with the first quartet of Haydn's Op.76 set, perhaps his greatest achievements in the medium.
For the first two movements the Dovers put not a foot wrong: the first movement was our introduction to their marvellous tone production and ensemble; more than that, the music smiled. The adagio sostenuto was played with tremendous poise and concentration.
In the minuet, though, the performance seemed somewhat arch and the fortissimos exaggerated; and the finale, despite terrific ensemble playing, was simply - for my, admittedly, difficult-to-satisfy taste - too hard driven.
I should point out that I was probably in the minority in this opinion.
The statistically-minded among you will by now have realised that for nine of the eleven movements performed (which amounts to 81.81 per cent) the Dovers were simply magnificent.
On this showing, the Dover Quartet have a long and stellar career before them. And I, for one, trust that it will not be too long before we have the chance to hear them play in Victoria once again.
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