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First Unitarian Church
June 12, 2016
According to Mstislav Rostropovich, "sometimes Shostakovich was unable to talk at all. He just wanted to ha be the presence of a person he liked, sitting without a word in the same room...I'd arrive at his flat and he'd say, 'Sit down and now we can be silent'. I would sit for half an hour, without a word. It was most relaxing, just sitting. Then Shostakovich would get up and say, 'Thank you. Goodbye, Slava'."
Shostakovich's string quartets, arguably the greatest cycle since that of Beethoven (Bartók notwithstanding), are generally accepted as being the key to his innermost feelings. If his symphonies are public statements, then the quartets are his private ones.
However, Shostakovich could not, for reasons of political necessity and did not, for reasons of self-preservation, wear his heart on his musical sleeve.
And when it comes to navigating the tricky slopes of a Shostakovich quartet there are few, if any, guides more surefooted than the Lafayette Quartet.
The seventh is Shostakovich's shortest quartet and far from his least enigmatic. The Lafayettes' performance gripped the listener from the unmistakably sinister, edgy opening to the final, gnomic pizzicato and morendo close.
Antonín Dvořák famously wrote a trio of "American" works, and although for most listeners they sound at least as Czech as the rest of his music, we should also bear in mind the composer's own words in a letter to Emil Kozanek in September 1893: "As for my new Symphony, the F major String Quartet and the Quintet (composed here in Spillville) — I should never have written these works 'just so' if I hadn't seen America".
Of the quartet in particular Dvořák wrote "I wanted to write something for once that was very melodious and straightforward, and dear Papa Haydn kept appearing before my eyes, and that is why it all turned out so simply. And it's good that it did."
Except for taking issue with his "for once" (practically everything Dvořák wrote was "very melodious and straightforward") it is hard to argue.
The Lafayette Quartet closed their programme with a delectable performance of Dvořák's most popular quartet (tempting though it is to write "most popular chamber work" the — second — piano quintet presents fierce competition).
It was a performance full of glorious detail and so affectionate that even something as extreme as the rallentando with which they prefaced the opening movement's second subject did not seem out of place, not even coming after the liveliness of the Joanna Hood-propelled first subject.
The slow movement featured a wonderfully concentrated violin duet over arpeggio viola and pizzicato cello, and an extremely eloquent solo from Pamela Highbaugh Aloni at the close.
The perky scherzo once again featured some extreme tempo changes, which, once again, worked because of the level of the quartet's commitment and sheer beauty of their playing.
As to the finale: I was so engrossed that I wrote the single word "sunny" in my notebook and then sat back to enjoy the music.
I have long admired the Lafayettes' way with Haydn, who wrote more masterpieces in the form (which he also, essentially, created) than any other composer.
Their performance of Op.33 No.2, known as the "Joke" was verging on perfection and I do not expect ever to hear the first and third movements performed better: the work's smiling opening, the flawless cantilena of the third.
I very much enjoyed most of the second movement scherzo (Op.33 seems to be the first time Haydn did not use a minuet), particularly the portamento in the first and second violins. I did, though, once or twice feel that the playing was veering towards the arch — which is not someting I expect from Haydn (who never smirks), or the Lafayettes. I'm hoping it was my imagination.
The famously cheeky finale which gives the quartet its nickname poses a problem for the players: do they, by their body language, intimate to the audience that the music has not yet finished or fool them into thinking that it has?
On both occasions that I have seen them play this quartet, the Lafayettes have adopted the second approach, which means that the final notes of the work are usually buried beneath the audience's laughter.
Which may, or may not, be what Haydn intended. I don't claim to know, but feel that it would be nice to hear it played the other way, if just for once.
I do know, from conversations at the interval, that I was not alone in this.
These (extremely) minor carpings should not, however, in any way be taken as serious criticism of a fine afternoon's music-making from an outstanding ensemble performing at the peak of their formidable powers.
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