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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
August 6, 2024
"Before Franz Schubert's String Quintet in C major, all people to whom music, even chamber music, means something, bow happily in admiration — or they rave. The work occupies a singular place in Schubert's oeuvre, indeed in musical literature. It is enigmatic, and it is complete...With words, no human being can completely unravel the sounding mystery of this work".
Musician and academic Joachim Kaiser would appear to have neatly preempted this review, although I would argue that, albeit less specifically, he was beaten to the punch by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's famous observation: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent".
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding any angels fearing to tread, this fool will rush in (although, given the time it has taken to write this review, perhaps "rush" is scarcely le mot juste) and at least attempt to convey something of the feelings engendered by the profound and penetrating performance of the quintet given by the New Zealand String Quartet with the more than able assistance of Pamela Highbaugh Aloni.
One of the first things to note about the quintet is its sheer length — the opening movement alone lasts as long as (or, in some hands, even longer than) the first movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony; indeed, several late-Nineteenth century German musicians were convinced that the quintet was Schubert's own arrangement of a now lost symphony (no less a figure than Brahms vehemently disagreed in a letter to one of these misguided few). And yet, although the work occupies the best part of an hour in performance, somehow this is rarely noticed by the attentive listener.
And so it was here, helped, naturally, by the consummate artistry of the musicians.
The introduction was pregnant with possibilities and the first movement, taken at an unimpeachable tempo, was cast in delicious tonal colours. The famous second subject, given first to the two cellos, was played con (molto) affezione and the repeat of the exposition was even more welcome than usual. The development built to an intense climax, and the lead-in to the recapitulation was simply gorgeous. As, indeed, were the closing bars.
The slow movement was concentrated and intimate, the tumultuous central section deeply troubled, but when the clouds finally parted and let the sun shine again, one once more felt that all was right with a world which could produce a Schubert.
The scherzo was energetic and vital and fairly flew along, while the sombre trio was profoundly thoughtful before the exuberant repeat of the scherzo swept all before it.
The finale was taken at a fairly deliberate tempo, but there was no lack of momentum and the players indulged in some lovely rubato for the second subject. The movement's shifting moods were beautifully captured and that deliberate tempo meant that the final coda could speed up considerably without ever seeming overly quick.
As ever, the final semitone lurch from D flat down to the tonic C, while expected, nevertheless came as a shock: Schubert's last and greatest chamber work remains, ultimately, his most enigmatic.
A truly outstanding performance.
We are all familiar with musical pastiches, in which one composer writes in the style of another, usually earlier composer (Charles Rosen, for example, has described Mozart's various works in Baroque style as pastiches); composers have even written music as commentary on other music, a primary example being Robert Simpson's fourth, fifth and sixth quartets, inspired by Beethoven's three "Razumovsky" quartets. Much music has also, of course, been inspired by literature: Richard Strauss's Don Quixote being a prominent non-operatic example.
But I can only think of a single work which is music about literature about music, and that is Leoš Janáček's String Quartet No.1, usually known as "The Kreutzer Sonata", although the composer's own sobriquet was "Z podnštnu Tolstého Kreutzerovy sonáty" ("Inspired by Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata"). Tolstoy's novella, was, in its turn, inspired by Beethoven's Violin Sonata No.9. (As an aside, Janáček had previously composed three movements of an earlier string quartet as well as a a piano trio, also inspired by the Tolstoy, but these are lost, although some of the music of the latter may have found its way into the String Quartet No.1.)
Tolstoy's story had the distinction of being banned by both the Russian and US governments, its chief protagonist, Pozdnyshev, is overhead describing how he had murdered his wife, blaming "animal excesses" and "swinish connections" for the rage which his wife's playing the Beethoven sonata with another man, a violinist, engendered in him.
Clearly this music does not come under the heading of "easy listening" and I must confess that, for me, it is music that I can admire and respect, but am unlikely ever to love.
From its astringent opening to its despairing close (marked feroce) the New Zealanders displayed a total mastery of this essentially unhappy work, the almost constantly changing tempo of the second movement being particularly well managed. The performance was marked by an intense volatility (or perhaps volatile intensity). The final accelerando to the anguished close offering no optimism, only despair.
One can only be grateful that this was not the final item on the programme — I could not help but be reminded of Bruno Walter's relating Mahler's observation on Der Abschied from Das Lied von der Erde: "Isn't it unbearable? Won't people commit suicide after this?"
Happily no, not with the Schubert quintet in prospect after the interval.
Tabea Squire may have been born in Scotland, but she emigrated to New Zealand at the age of nine (presumably with her parents), she is a violinist and studied for five years with the NZSQ's Helene Pohl.
Primarily though, as her website describes her, Squire is a composer and the evening opened with her "I Danced, Unseen".
The music began with violist Gillian Ansell walking onto the stage while playing, followed by second violinist Peter Clark and then Pohl and cellist Rolf Gjelsten. (The opening page of the score, which is available online, does not seem to direct this, but presumably it has the composer's imprimatur.)
The melodic material was simple and yet somehow timeless — had I been informed that it was composed in England a century ago, I should have had no difficulty in believing it.
The music allowed the quartet to display its exquisitely beautiful tonal palette (which one could not say for the Janaček which followed) and, although it could perhaps have benefited from a little judicious editing, was nevertheless a marvellous opening to a wonderful evening's music-making.
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