Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 30, 2018
"Would to God that I were allowed this day...to repeat to you with my own lips that I am dying for love of you."
Although Brahms did not complete his Piano Quartet, Op.60 (his third and last such) until almost two decades later, he had mostly composed it during the period 1854 to 1856, a time when, as his fervent letter to Clara Schumann aptly demonstrates, he was going through emotional turmoil, being in love with the wife of his friend, mentor and benefactor Robert Schumann, who had, at his own request, been taken to a mental asylum.
The only part of the original composition to remain untouched when he revisited it was the third, slow, movement: the opening movement was revised and the second and fourth movements newly composed. The key was also changed from C sharp minor to C minor. The revisions and new composition took two years, finally being completed during a holiday near Heidelberg in 1875.
But any idea that the turbulence of the original had been ameliorated should be quickly dismissed: as Brahms wrote to his publisher, "you may place a picture on the title page, namely a head — with a pistol in front of it...I shall send you a photograph of myself for the purpose".
Joan Blackman, Yariv Aloni, Eugene Osadchy and Arthur Rowe opened their Victoria Summer Music Festival programme with a superb reading of the Brahms, in which his conflicted emotions were never far from the surface.
From the big dramatic piano chords and full, smooth string tones of the opening to the sombre close, the first movement gripped the listener's attention. Balances were very fine indeed and, given the problems Arnold Schoenberg always had with performances of the G minor quartet, I think it is fair to lay credit for this at the feet (or, rather, fingers) of the performers. I particularly admired Aloni's propulsive viola in the development and the big climax to which it led.
The driving scherzo had an almost "Hungarian" feel (I use the quotes because, as we know, what passed for Hungarian music with most nineteenth century composers was, in fact, based on gypsy melodies); the trio brought a more gentle mood before the scherzo's repeat and its boisterous close.
The andante, the emotional centre of the work (and the only music unchanged from the original) was glorious, opening with Osadchy's noble cello solo (believed by Brahms' biographer Richard Specht to constitute his farewell to Clara). Throughout the movement Rowe's limpid pianism was offset by the gorgeous string colours.
Perhaps the finale is not quite as tightly focused as the first three movements, but Blackman's yearning violin, the music's building intensity and the somewhat enigmatic close more than made up for that.
In a word: superb.
Murray Adaskin's Introduction and Rondo for Piano Quartet was, I confess, entirely new to me.
The introduction featured clean, slightly bracing harmonies, exquisitely played; while the rondo was skittering, angular and highly syncopated, with more lyrical interludes. It was great fun and the playing was marvellously crisp.
Robert Schumann's "Year of Chamber Music", 1842, actually only lasted for five-and-a-half months, from June to mid-November, during which time he composed all three string quartets, the piano quintet and, finally, his only piano quartet, completed in just two weeks.
Unfortunately, Schumann's themes in the opening movement do not strike me as being among his more distinguished, although the music has numerous points of interest, including the solemn introduction, with its hymn-like string accompaniment (which for some reason put me in mind of Beethoven), which returns to introduce the development section.
I did enjoy the first movement's bold coda and the subsequent playful scherzo. The cantabile slow movement featured some eloquent cello, while the bouncy and extravert finale, although once again featuring a fugato, handles it rather more deftly than the same movement in the piano quintet.
Overall, though, I have to admit that, like much of Schumann's chamber music, the piano quartet does not do a great deal for me, even when played this well.
A special evening, though; I just wish that the Brahms and Schumann had been interchanged.