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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
January 21, 2018
As far as is known, Felix Mendelssohn's Op.20 was the first music ever composed for a string octet per se, although by the autumn of 1825, when the sixteen-year-old prodigy composed his astonishing work, Louis Spohr had already, two years previously, composed the first of his double quartets — a fact which seems to have escaped several commentators who praise Spohr's invention as allowing for more tonal colours than "the standard octet".
For Mendelssohn, as for many of the composers who followed in his example and wrote octets (and there are over two dozen known examples), the octet was as much a miniaturised orchestra as a chamber group: he made this explicit in his instructions to the players that "This Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style".
And, indeed, composers are still, up to the present (see below) composing works for four violins, two violas and two cellos.
Certainly one of the earliest post-Mendelssohn examples, is that of his friend and Leipzig colleague, the Danish composer Niels Gade.
There is, of course, one major difference between the Mendelssohn and the Gade: one was composed by a genius at the start of his, cruelly-truncated, career; the other by a highly talented composer in his maturity.
It is a rare concert which couples the two octets (although they are occasionally disc-mates on CD) and it is the Mendelssohn which gets the more frequent outings; this evening was, therefore, a particular delight for those of us who love the Gade nearly as much as the Mendelssohn.
It has been almost two decades since Gade's octet was last heard in Victoria (and that was probably its local premiere); seven of the same eight musicians were involved on this occasion.
Despite a somewhat relaxed tempo for the opening movement (the hypercritical might argue that it was not sufficiently con fuoco) the gorgeous sound produced by the combined Saguenay and Lafayette Quartets was surely enough to silence any carping, and the development section (after the repeated — thank you! — exposition) was fiery enough for anybody's taste.
The ardent, rhapsodic slow movement featured an apparently endless succession of instrumental combinations to considerable effect. The scherzo is a sprightly dance, perhaps not of Mendelssohnian fairies, perhaps — oh dear, I feel a dreadful, yet irresistible pun coming on — more Gadeian gnomes; it had a real spring in its step and the closing bars were delicious.
Perhaps Gade's inspiration flagged a little in the finale, but the performance did not, being joyful and full of rhythmic verve.
It was a performance which was worth the almost twenty-year wait, but I hope it won't be another twenty before Victoria gets to hear it again.
Probably the most recent example of an octet for strings is Airat Ichmouratov's Op.56, "The Letter" inspired by Stefan Zweig's "Letter from an Unknown Woman", which was receiving its first performances during the series of concerts which closed this evening.
Although it was good to hear a synopsis of the plot of the novella, I'm afraid that the story of the woman sending the (unwitting) father of her child a single white rose every year, for me summoned up nothing so much as the glutinously sentimental writing of Rosie M. Banks, husband of Bertie Wooster's pal Bingo Little. (Indeed, one of her novels is entitled "Only a Rose" and has a not totally dissimilar plot.)
While there was a good deal to enjoy in the music, I could not help but feel that some of its "contemporary" effects — such as having the second cello rap his instrument with his knuckles — aside from being "old hat" in the contemporary music field anyway, seemed more like gimmicks added to make the music seem more up-to-the-minute which, frankly, was not necessary.
I am sure that the ensemble cast the work in the best possible light and it did indeed have some lovely moments, but, for me, it did not quite cohere.
Finally, of course, came the Mendelssohn, in a performance to remind the listener just why it is surely the most remarkable music ever to come from the pen of a sixteen-year-old.
The opening movement was taken at a perfect tempo, balances were immaculate and Ann Elliot-Goldschmid has no illusions (or delusions) that she is playing a concerto; would that all violinists understood this. The players and the music smiled and so did the audience.
The slow movement unfolded as a seamless cantabile, while the miraculous scherzo made its usual extraordinary effect.
The finale took off like a rocket (although its like was never imagined in Mannheim) and possessed an unstoppable momentum that carried all before it and, eventually, brought the audience to its feet.
This was a concert for anyone who had imagined that an entire evening of string octets might be a little de trop.
Wonderful!
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