Haydn: String Quartet op. 64/5 - Janacek: String Quartet nr. 2 - Ravel: String Quartet

Yesterday it was Takacs Quartet's turn to perform at the Brussels Conservatoire. A splendid programme: Haydn's Lark Quartet, Janacek's Intimate Letters, and Ravel's masterpiece. The hall was full but the audience was dead silent. Yet again, and significantly more so than with the Haas Quartet, I was unable to stay with the music. I found the Takacs' playing less than compelling. There was a unfocused quality, a diffusion of energy that made the music sound muffled and uninvolving. The Haydn quartet was performed very leisurely, giving the impression of a laid-back rehearsal session. Pleasant, but hardly captivating. Janacek's quartet was a disappointment. I love the music, but this reading struck me as disjointed and contrived. Already the sul ponticello effects at the very outset of the piece annoyed me, as if what I heard was something fake, not the real thing. I lost interest somewhere halfway down the road. I drew most satisfaction from the Ravel, which received a solid and, yes, perhaps even good performance. All in all a not very memorable evening. I didn't wait for the encore.

Debussy: Etudes, Images - Bartok: 3 Studies, Improvisations - Haydn: Piano Sonata nr. 20

More great and hitherto unknown music is coming my way. Yesterday we went to another concert at the Conservatoire in Brussels featuring Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on piano. Bavouzet has recently made a name for himself with a series of Haydn and Debussy recordings on the Chandos label. Particularly the Debussy recordings have met with critical acclaim. The programme for this concert was most judiciously put together. First a 'Sturm und Drang' Haydn sonata (nr .20, from 1771), followed by Debussy's brief Hommage à Haydn on a BADDG (= HAYDN) motif. Then Book II of the Images for piano. After the break a switch to two works from Bartok's violent middle period: the Improvisations on Hungarian Folk Songs, and the Three Studies. Back to Debussy with a selection from the late Etudes. Altogether a very challenging programme, certainly for the performer but also for the listener.

Earlier in the week I had prepared for the concert somewhat as I had never heard the Etudes. HVC had recently drawn my attention to them. Prior to our conversation I didn't even know they existed. But once I realised that they sprung from the same miraculous 1915 summer in Pourville that yielded the Cello Sonata and the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, I looked forward to getting to know them with keen anticipation. There are not that many recordings around and I settled on the celebrated 1989 performance by Mitsoku Uchida. I was immediately struck by the immense power that radiates from the music. The Etudes' surface is all glitter and charm, but as in all the late works there is a steeliness and stoicism at the core that is humbling. The spirit of Chopin hovers over this whole work, which is not surprising as Debussy had been trying to deal with his own creative impasse and depression (due to illness and war) by working on an edition of the former's work. In the Etudes his affection for the Polish master blends with his reverence for the French baroque tradition. I'm only at the beginning of getting to know this impressive body of work. It's all one can wish for in a piece of music: complex, layered, abstract, truly epic. From what I have heard it may well be Debussy's very best work. In my mind this man continues to grow and grow in stature. 

I have also been listening to the Images, but only briefly. Book I, with its more abstract qualities (Hommage à Rameau, Mouvement) seemed to be more interesting to me than Book II which leans more towards the impressionist Preludes.

The concert itself did maybe not totally fulfill the expectations. It did not produce the sense of occassion experienced, for example, with the Belcea Quartet recently. Bavouzet is no doubt a fine pianist and technically up to the formidable task he set himself. But what I missed was that clarity of line and sharpness of contour that I think is needed in these three composers. In my experience the whole programme coalesced somewhat into a blur. Whether it was early Haydn, middle-period Bartok or middle or late Debussy did not seem to matter too much. Overall there was this sameness of feeling, a certain lack of structure and relief, a homogeneity of texture that kept us, listeners, from getting to that point where you can see the music as it were from above, in three dimensions. We didn't get there this time. But it's always enjoyable to spend an evening in the Conservatoire. The acoustics are good, the seats comfy, the hall suprisingly well heated, the audience always attentive. This time the hall was only half full. Amazing, isn't it? 

Haydn: String Quartet op. 77 nr.1 - Beethoven: String Quartet op. 95 'Serioso' - Schubert: String Quintet D 956

We were really spoiled this week as on Thursday we had the Belcea Quartet performing at the Brussels Conservatorium. Personally I feel this is one of the finest chamber ensembles around. They didn't disappoint in this choice Viennese programme. The Conservatoire was packed but as is customary this was a very disciplined audience that seems to know why it is spending time in a concert hall. The rapt concentration and the relatively small hall created an ambience of wonderful intimacy. The Haydn quartet (which I hadn't heard before) came off very well. What struck me was the relaxed, almost friendly energy that radiates from the group. The music seemed to emerge almost effortlessly. It sounded like the image that is projected by a Zeiss lens: there was wonderfully luminous microdetail, clearly etched but soft contours and a holographic sense of musical lines meshing with one another. It's not spectacular but musically deeply satisfying. Corina Belcea leads as a genuine 'primus inter pares' (and a ravishing appearance she is too). Her violin soars but not to put her colleagues in the shadow but to stretch a broader canvas for them. This is quartet playing as it should be.

The Beethoven quartet came off slightly less successfully I thought. I have the more assertive (maybe even aggressive) rendition of the Artemis Quartet in my ears and for this 'angry' Beethoven piece this is perhaps more appropriate than the somewhat softer grained approach of the Belcea. Anyway, we were listening to what is still a very good performance.

After the break came the Schubert String Quintet in C, with Valentin Erben (ex-Alban Berg) taking the second cello part (as he did on the Belcea's 2009 recording of this piece). Again, I didn't know the Schubert so I had to listen with unprepared ears. Schubert is a composer I still have to discover. Certainly, I have an inkling of what Schubert stands for and it is not an idiom that I am immediately attracted to. There is a simplicity at the heart of Schubert's music, it seems to me, that attracts and leaves me cold at the same time. I love an architectural conception of music. Music that is 'durchkomponiert'. That's why I like Bartok. That's why I am intrigued but also suspicious of Debussy who made it look like his music was not 'composed' at all whilst lavishing the greatest care on the most minute detail of its architectural conception. Schubert throws a single chord at you and immediately one is taken off guard by a complex emotional vista. The Quintet is no exception. It's a very late piece, in fact the last chamber composition Schubert was able to finish two months before his untimely death. It has an otherworldly atmosphere similar to the late piano sonatas. As in those sonatas, Schubert takes the time to develop his musical material: the work takes over 50 minutes! The work didn't strike me as difficult, however. There's a lot of repetition so it's easy to follow (compared to the Beethoven Serioso where there is no repetition at all). The cumulative impact of this long piece, however, is quite extraordinary. One really has the experience of a journey to the edge. It is often said that the quintet's finale, with it's earthbound, schmaltzy character, doesn't seem to belong. It most certainly does belong and the merrymaking is all the more poignant given the seriousness of what went before. Yves Knockaert thought in his spoken introduction before the concert that Schubert grasped back to Haydn in this finale. But I don't hear Haydn; I hear Mahler there, and certainly Bruckner, and in the final bars we are getting a glimpse of the territory that Mahler reconnoitered in this valedictory symphony and that was further explored by the Second Viennese School. In that sense the Belcea's reading was certainly revelatory. I was so impressed by their maturity and humanity. This is true, timeless artistry.

Haydn - String Quartet op. 33 nr. 3

From the minimalists to the classics. I picked an arbitrary Haydn quartet, op. 33 (the Russian quartets, from 1781), nr. 3, nicknamed ‘The Bird’. Despite it being in a radiant C major, it mixes light and shadow in a most affecting whole. The first movement, Allegro moderato, opens with this graceful theme with repeated notes lending it its birdlike quality. Despite the light-footedness and poise, there is something faintly bittersweet in the music. That is even more outspoken in the short Allegretto which strikes one as really pensive and wistful. And yet there is fiber and masculinity too. The slow movement is a genuine, probing conversation amongst friends. The Rondo-finale is short and boisterous with a whiff of à la zingarese. The Quatuor Mosaïques play the music with great feeling and authority. No pyrotechnics, no pumped-up expressiveness. Just plain, honest music-making. Beautiful recording too. Haydn never ceases to amaze.