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Christ Church Cathedral
August 22, 2020
Many music lovers are aware of the year 1685 as a musical Annus mirabilis, witnessing, as it did, the births of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Domenico Scarlatti.
Rather fewer, I suspect, are aware that the year 1874 was a similarly blessed one, for in that year (in strictly alphabetical order) Reynaldo Hahn, Gustav Holst, Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg were born.
As was, most germanely for this review, Josef Suk.
Suk's reputation has long been overshadowed by that of his illustrious teacher (and father-in-law) Antonín Dvořák, but in the last few decades there are signs that he is finally beginning to receive his due as a very fine composer in his own right.
Saturday evening's concert by the Emily Carr String Quartet — the last instalment of this year's Cathedral Summer Recital Series — opened with Suk's Meditations on an Old Bohemian Chorale "St. Wenceslas", Op.35 (Meditace na staročeský chorál "Svatý Václave").
Suk composed the work in 1914, as a response to the new requirement that the Bohemian String Quartet, whose second violinist he was, play the Austrian national anthem at the opening of every concert. The ancient hymn "St. Wenceslas" (the same historical figure, but no musical relation to the Christmas Carol) was a plea to the saint for the well-being of the Czech people, a message that audiences in Suk's homeland immediately understood,
The Emily Carrs have performed this piece before, as recently as October 2018. If anything this was an even finer account, couched in sumptuous tones and reaching even greater heights of intensity. The quartet's collective pleasure at being able to perform in public once again was palpable.
The end of Beethoven's life was, as we know, almost exclusively occupied with string quartets, the only genre in which he composed more music was that for his own instrument, the piano. His last completed work was the new finale for the Op.130 quartet (and perhaps appropriately, his last music for keyboard was the four-hand arrangement of the quartet's original finale, the Grosse Fuge).
His last complete work was, of course, the String Quartet in F, Op.135. At first glance this is a far more relaxed, almost carefree, work than its immediate predecessors, although — as was not uncommon with Beethoven — his sketches overlapped with the composition of that far knottier piece, the C sharp minor quartet, Op.131.
For his last quartet Beethoven reverted to the traditional four movement form, yet this work bears a similar relation to his early quartets as does the "Haydnesque" eighth symphony to the first. The form may be familiar, but the content is not.
Beethoven further muddied the waters with his somewhat enigmatic heading for the finale: "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" (The Difficult Decision). Various theories have been formulated regarding this, ranging from philosophical musings on Life and Death to more trivial matters such as an unpaid laundry bill. Misha Amory points us, instead, to the composer's note to his publisher: "Here, my dear friend, is my last quartet. It will be the last; and indeed it has given me much trouble. For I could not bring myself to compose the last movement. But as your letters were reminding me of it, in the end I decided to compose it. And that is the reason why I have written the motto: 'The difficult resolution — Must it be? — It must be, it must be!'".
Prevented, by the pandemic, from giving their planned complete Beethoven cycle, the Emilys chose to give us the last of the sixteen in a reading which again underlined what a truly splendid ensemble they have become over the years.
The first movement began with an almost chirpy opening gesture, the whole being playful yet not carefree, with a decided hint of the enigmatic. The scherzo was busy and had a propulsive bounce to its rhythms and a wonderfully snappy close. There was absolutely no hint that this is far from easy music to play. The slow movement was indisputably Late Beethoven, solemn and concentrated, with a quite exquisite ending.
That recondite last movement opened in searching fashion (the superscription "Muss es sein" — "Must it be?"); the answering allegro ("Es muss sein!" — "It must be!") seeming to display a resolution and determination to make the best of things. Once again, the quartet's tone colours were gorgeous and I especially liked the hugely resonant pizzicatos near the close.
According to Joaquín Turina: "One afternoon of bullfighting in the Madrid arena...I saw my work. I was in the court of horses. Behind a small door, there was a chapel, filled with incense, where toreadors went right before facing death. It was then there appeared, in front of my eyes, in all its plenitude, this subjectively musical and expressive contrast between the hubbub of the arena, the public that awaited the fiesta, and the devotion of those who, in front of this poor altar, filled with touching poetry, prayed to God to protect their lives".
This was the inspiration for his 1925 piece La Oración del Torero (The Bullfighter's Prayer), originally composed for a laúd ensemble, Quarteto Aguilar. The laúd is a Spanish lute, resembling the mandolin more than the baroque lute, with various models covering a wide range of pitches.
The following year Turina arranged the music for string quartet, piano trio and also string orchestra (this last version was performed by the Victoria Chamber Orchestra in February 2012).
Saturday's recital closed with a rich-hued account of an under-performed work. There was a definite hint of Ravel (whom Turina knew during his years in Paris) in the opening — which reminded me that it has been far too long since we heard the Emilys perform Ravel's quartet — but when the main melody appeared it was indisputably Spanish. The music alternates between the gravity of the prayer-like music and the more frivolous "hubbub of the arena": both moods were conveyed superlatively and the final bars were delicious.
A fine close to the series and an equally fine augury for the quartet's recently-announced Autumn series.
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