Tchaikovsky: String Quartet nr. 1 - Shostakovich: String Quartet nr. 7 - Schubert: String Quartet nr. 14

On Thursday the Pavel Haas Quartet was passing through Brussels. I've been mightily impressed by their recordings of the Janacek and Prokofiev quartets. Together with the Belcea Quartet they count amongst my favourite ensembles. Although I really can't point out an obvious shortcoming from the Quartet's side, this concert didn't quite capture my imagination. Maybe I was preoccupied, maybe it was the uncharacteristically unfocused and restless audience, maybe even it was the Conservatoire hall's acoustics which are generally generous towards chamber ensembles but now seemed to rob the Haas from the filigree textures and wonderful plasticity I've come to expect from them. They didn't sound as softly grained as the Jerusalem, and not as marvelously layered as the Belcea. On the whole the Haas' tone struck me as full-bodied and virile, but also a trifle prosaic. Maybe it was also the dynamics amongst the quartet members, which didn't seem to communicate overly generously amongst themselves. Or maybe it was just the repertoire. The highlight was Shostakovich's Seventh Quartet (op. 108; 1960), which is sadly also his shortest. It is dedicated to his wife Nina, in memoriam. In its combination of terseness, wistfulness and violence it's characteristic for Shostakovich's later work. The Haas' X-ray like reading went to the bone, unlike the Jerusalem's more cultured and cosmetic approach to the Tenth Quartet a few weeks ago. Tchaikovsky's String Quartet nr. 1, op. 11 was the first piece on the menu. Although it's a lovely piece in its own right, it's not really the kind of music I'm now tuned into. But the first movement impressed me by its lyrical ebullience and it's hard not to fall, at least for a moment, under the spell of the warmhearted Andante cantabile. In the Scherzo my thoughts started to drift however, and they didn't regroup until the lacklustre applause at the end of the piece. After the break we heard Schubert's most loved quartet, his Death and the Maiden (D810; 1824). I must say it is a work that for some reason I have never been able to fully embrace. And that didn't change on Thursday night, whatever the merits of the Haas Quartet's performance. As an encore we were treated to the slow second movement of Dvorak's American Quartet.