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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
November 4, 2017
Of all the great composers who wrote string quartets, relatively few pushed their cycles into double digits . Haydn — sui generis in several ways — did, of course, as did Mozart. But once we arrive in the nineteenth century there are only three who are really in contention: Beethoven (sixteen quartets, seventeen if you count the Grosse Fuge separately), Schubert (fifteen) and Shostakovich (also fifteen).
Saturday's splendid recital by the Lafayette Quartet included one quartet from each of these composers, although they declined to take advantage of the clocks' going back some hours later and did not give us each composer's longest quartet; for which relief, much thanks; I prefer going to bed before midnight these days.
Franz Schubert began writing quartets early — as he did virtually other form, which, considering his cruelly abbreviated lifespan, is just as well for those of us who love his music. And is there really any other appropriate response to most Schubert? I think not.
Schubert's E flat quartet, D.87 is numbered tenth and yet, as the Deutsch number (not always an entirely reliable guide) strongly suggests, it is a relatively early work, composed in 1813, the composer's seventeenth year.
It would, therefore, be unrealistic to expect the depth which is found in Schubert's last quartets, yet there is still, especially when played this well, much to enjoy in the work.
One composer did seem, to me, to loom over a good deal of the music, and that was Haydn: the melodies of the opening movement and subsequent scherzo both seemed more Haydnesque than what we today call Schubertian.
The Lafayettes made an excellent case for hearing the work more often (I don't believe that, apart from on record, I had ever encountered the piece before). The smooth, almost velvety tones which they employed throughout and the elegantly energetic manner of their playing in the first movement (whose main theme begins disconcertingly in the manner of "God Save the Queen", albeit for only a handful of notes) would themselves have made the entire evening worthwhile.
I particularly enjoyed the hurdy-gurdy effect in the trio of the scherzo and the beautiful adagio, even though profundity was still a few years in Schubert's future at this point. And the finale, despite rambling somewhat and opening with a hint of a "Mannheim Rocket", brought the quartet to a jovial close.
Some opus numbers have a significance beyond the merely arithmetic. There have been suggestions that Elgar deliberately gave his violin concerto the opus number of 61 in honour of the Beethoven concerto; and surely Shostakovich must have realised that a string quartet with the opus number of 133 was inevitably going to invoke the spirit of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge.
Shostakovich also decided that his twelfth quartet would feature twelve-tone composition, even though the work as a whole is in the (for string players) distinctly unfriendly key of D flat major.
In her (commendably brief) introduction to the performance, Ann Elliott-Goldschmid even pointed out that within Shostakovich's tone-row (the non-repeating sequence of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale upon which any twelve-tone composition is based) it is possible to discern a phrase which, seemingly, derives from the Beethoven.
Whether or not this was intentional we shall probably never know. It is a fine conceit, though.
Anyone imagining that the Lafayettes might seem jaded after their complete Shostakovich cycle earlier this year would have rapidly been put straight by the performance of this craggy, knotty work.
The opening movement was cast in richly bleak tones (yes, I know) and occasionally put me in mind, thematically, of the fourth symphony which had finally, after a quarter of a century's hiatus, been premiered just a few years prior to the composition of the quartet.
The second (and last) movement, is viewed by some as slow movement, scherzo and finale shoehorned into one, for which there is, of course, ample precedent.
Although many moments stand out individually — the energy of the "scherzo" which was possessed of tremendous momentum even in the most ferocious passagework; the eerie muted accompaniment to Pamela Highbaugh-Aloni's keening cello solo; the sheer intensity of the playing throughout — it is the Lafayettes' dedication to and clear empathy with the music which linger in the memory.
If any quartet on the planet is currently playing Shostakovich better than this, I'd dearly love to know who they are.
If the peaks of Beethoven's output for quartet are Opp.130, 131 and 132, then the first and last of the late quartets, Opp.127 and 135 are the foothills.
At first sight Op.127 seems fairly conventional: it is, after all, cast in the standard four movements, which pattern Beethoven would break in his next two quartets. But the gap between Op.95, his previous work in the form, and this work is immense. Like all the late quartets, Op.127 uses conventional-sounding material in unconventional ways and one comes away feeling, as so often with late Beethoven, that while every note, every phrase was clearly comprehensible, the work as a whole has a meaning which we lesser mortals cannot quite grasp.
The Lafayettes played this quartet at the opening concert of their complete Beethoven cycle back in October 1999 (not just last century, but last millennium) and I have certainly not heard them essay it since.
Their performance captured superbly the volatility of the opening movement, the sheer lyrical beauty and concentration of the slow movement, with its livelier episodes hinting at the Heiliger Dankgesang of Op.132, the gradual teasing out of the theme in the scherzo and the playfulness of the finale, in which Beethoven indulges himself with one of his favourite, but infinitely-variable, tricks: challenging the audience to know exactly when he is finished.
As they embark upon their fourth decade — although it seems somewhat un-gallant to mention the fact — the Lafayette Quartet continue to go from strength to strength.
Victorians should rejoiced at their continuing presence in our midst.
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