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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
June 15, 2017
Unusually, Joseph Haydn's last completed set of string quartets, his Opus 77, comprises just two works, rather than the usual six (or, in the cases of Opp.51 and 54, three).
Various reason have been suggested for this — and for the fact that his very last work in the form, published as Op.103, is a torso consisting of just two movements — but among the more interesting is the notion that it was Haydn's hearing a performance of at least one of Beethoven's Op.18 set which led him to abandon the form and "pass the baton" to his erstwhile pupil.
Yet there is no suggestion in Op.77 that Haydn's gifts were in any way deserting him or that he was "running out of steam". And, despite what some (often younger) ensembles seem to believe, he was most certainly not attempting to emulate his junior colleague.
It was with a wonderful performance of Op.77 No.1 that the Lafayette Quartet opened their Quartet Fest West recital on Thursday. The opening movement was taken at a steady pace — truly allegro moderato — but had a genuine spring in its step; the music had the nature of a genial conversation and, although there was a sense of urgency in the development section, the Lafayettes are most certainly aware of the difference between late Haydn and Beethoven.
The slow movement's slight air of melancholy was portrayed with affection and delectable tone colours. The minuet, a scherzo in all but name, was bright and bouncy; the trio was played with a nudge and a wink, to suggest that it was only superficially ominous. The finale, which H.C. Robbins Landon has said is "a summing up of one whole side of Haydn's many-sided nature, not least his love for folk music and his brilliantly successful attempt to wed it to the great tradition of western music" was joyful and exuberant and featured the kind of subtle rubato that comes only after decades of playing together.
The Lafayettes' approach to Haydn may not be the only way to play his music.
But while you are listening, it certainly seems to be.
Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014) was Australia's best-known composer, both domestically and internationally. His music is often inspired by the landscapes of his native land and his eighteen string quartets include four with optional part for the didgeridoo, the Australian aboriginal instrument.
Perhaps because the University of Victoria has no resident didgeridooist (if such be the term) the Lafayette Quartet eschewed those quartets and instead gave us his five-movement eighth quartet from 1968. Although Sculthorpe employs a number of "modern" techniques — glissandoing harmonics, "Bartók pizzicatos" and the like — there is never any feeling that they are mere gimmicks, but are rather at the service of the overall conception of the piece.
And a fairly concise work it is, framed by two lyrical cello solos, exquisitely played (as if it needed to be said) by Pamela Highbaugh Aloni, it most definitely did not outstay its welcome. Highly atmospheric, one could almost feel the desert heat searing one's skin in places.
In sum it was a performance which I imagine probably prompted others apart from myself to further investigate Sculthorpe's music.
Of all the inarguably great composers, Johannes Brahms seems to divide opinion more than most. Browse though his section in any book of musical quotations and you will probably be surprised at some of the vituperation to which he has been subject over the years. Most people are aware of Tchaikovsky's memorable "I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a talentless bastard!" and perhaps Colin Wilson's allegation that "Benjamin Britten claims that he plays through 'the whole of Brahms' at intervals to see whether Brahms is really as bad as he though, and ends by discovering that he is actually much worse".
But I think my favourite, a somewhat gnomic utterance, is from E.M. Forster's Howard's End: "Brahms, for all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like to be suspected of stealing an umbrella".
Well, quite.
Thursday's concert finished with Yariv Aloni joining the Lafayettes for a superb performance of the String Quintet No.2, Op.111.
Brahms had originally intended this to be his final work, however it is not, perhaps surprisingly, particularly "autumnal" in outlook, although the third movement, a typically Brahmsian intermezzo, comes close at times. And it must be said that the first movement's coda does have a distinct feeling of "all passion spent" — perhaps hinting at its composers then-advanced (he was all of 57!) age.
The music often has an almost orchestral feel — perhaps, had he lived to hear it, Schumann would have described this as a "veiled symphony", as he did with Brahms' piano sonatas.
Among many outstanding points of interest, there are at least three occasions when Brahms cannot resist showing us the glorious possibilities afforded by a pair of violas: the gorgeously lilting second subject of the opening movement, the opening of the slow movement and the beginning of the third movement's trio. What Schubert did with a pair of cellos in his quintet, Brahms almost achieves here; if only (a complaint I actually heard voiced afterwards) his melodic material were a little more memorable.
Whatever one's feelings about Brahms or his chamber music (and mine are definitely mixed) this was a performance to treasure, cast in rich tones, with an impassioned climax in the adagio and a vivacious finale with an appropriately vigorous coda, almost as if, at the very last, Brahms could not resist raging "against the dying of the light".
A glorious end to Quartet Fest West 2017.
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