Coffee Concerts

Review of the Strings Attached Annual Concert, to launch the for 2012/13 series of Coffee Concerts. Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, Sunday 7 October 2012.

What joy to be walking down to the Dome on a sunny Sunday morning for the start of a new series of coffee concerts. And especially to be going to hear the Castalian Quartet who played so wonderfully at the Brighton Festival in May. The atmosphere in the lobby was more like a party than a concert (but with coffee not wine) but the news was mixed: the leader of the Castalian was away, her place taken by a deputy. How could that possibly work? It takes years for a quartet to gel and develop its own way of playing. And they were to tackle some demanding pieces including Beethoven’s opus 95, the last quartet of his middle period and nearer to a late quartet in mood.

They started with a Haydn – the last of the Tost quartets – and all doubts were removed: impeccable ensemble, passionate but delicate playing from all, but especially the stand-in leader, Daniel Pioro. They played as though they had been together for years. The other surprise was the viola player, Charlotte Bonneton. She sits in the place usually taken by the cellist. Because they were not playing in the round but on a conventional stage this put her opposite the first violinist, and closer to the audience than usual for the viola. As a result, we heard the viola part as never before. It helps that she has a big instrument and makes a big sound. It also helps that she holds her instrument high and plays with a dramatic style. But placing her up front did help her to bring out the viola part. And this was achieved without losing any of the cellist’s contribution: she’s too good a player to be sidelined anyway and the sonority of the cello sound would never be lost despite being placed further back.

Next they played the Beethoven, starting at a tremendous pace. At first I thought it was too fast – I couldn’t keep up with all those curious little figures in the inner parts – but once I caught up I was won over. This first movement is furious and painful and their playing hammered at your soul. The second movement is a much calmer affair, starting with a slow descending scale for solo cello. Every note was crafted with exquisite tenderness. The last two movements are furious again – I was asking myself how they who are so young can have suffered enough to know how to play like this. It sounds soppy when I write it but that’s the effect Beethoven has on you.

Then, unlike last year, we had an interval and could wander out into the gardens to recover before the Dvorak opus 61. It’s a tuneful whimsical piece that I found hard to adjust to after the Beethoven but they were so tuneful and whimsical with it that it was won round.

As before, Chris Darwin’s programme notes are the best ever and free, despite being almost worth the price of the ticket themselves. And the drinks party afterwards was a treat – we were all congratulating each other on being there, and then Andrew Comben congratulated us all further by saying that Strings Attached may seem only to be supporting the coffee concerts but in fact the organisation has a much wider effect in promoting chamber music in Brighton and Hove. Now I’m home and can’t get those opening bars of the Beethoven out of my head. I need someone to make me laugh – and who should be at the Dome tonight but Jenny Eclair…

Andrew Polmear

 

Note: Chris Darwin’s Programme Notes will be available on this website well before each concert, and are found by clicking on the work in the concert list on the Coffee Concert page.

Fifty years ago, when I first started playing string quartets, we all wanted to play like the Amadeus. Then, as new quartets came on to the scene, we came to value the new interpretations that each brought with them. Now we have heard the most well known works, like Mozart’s “Dissonance” quartet, played in so many different ways that we no longer expect to be offered something totally new. And yet we were by the Kuss Quartet on the stage of the Dome Concert Hall on Sunday March 18^th. They play with a delicacy and elegancy that is quite their own and yet somehow they combine it with phrasing so expressive that you listen open-mouthed. It is like a conjuring trick; how can they convey such passion while playing in such an understated way? The answer, in the “Dissonance” Quartet, was that they remained faithful to the classical spirit of Mozart’s writing. They play quietly. they seem to allow plenty of space while playing no slower than anyone else and they bring out the meaning of every note and phrase. I was left with the image of a well-pruned apple tree. For those who are not gardeners, the principle of apple tree pruning is that you thin out the branches until you can stand under it and throw your hat up through the middle. That image captures something of the light and clarity that the Kuss’ way of playing lets into the music. All four players do it, but outstanding is the leader Jana Kuss, who has a sweetness of tone and lightness of touch to make you weep.

After the Mozart came a brilliant bit of programming: the Three Pieces for String Quartet of Stravinsky, one angular, one humorous and one tender. The whole thing only lasted 7 minutes but they were worthwhile in their own right and calmed us down after the excitement of the Mozart.

Then Tchaikovsky’s first String Quartet: would they have the power and the lyricism to sustain this work of high Romanticism? They did, and they did it with the same sweetness and expressiveness that is clearly their style. They showed that power doesn’t require volume or harshness; it just needs intensity. The muted andante cantabile is said to have made Tolstoy weep when he heard it and you could see why.

Finally, Chris Darwin’s programme notes were as clear and informative as they have been throughout the season. Who else would have been able to show so clearly how the opening four bars of the Mozart provide source material for the whole quartet; or how the Stravinsky and the “Ministry of Silly Walks” are connected through the music hall performer “Little Tich”?

 

Andrew Polmear

Reviewed by Andrew Polmear

What a joy to have the blinds up in the Corn Exchange on Sunday morning, 19th February, and the winter sun streaming through those great south-facing windows. It wasn’t such a joy for the players, the Endellion quartet, because they couldn’t sit in the round without one player being blinded, so they had to adopt a more conventional semi-circle, facing north. I found myself watching their backs or sides; though once they started playing I didn’t mind what I was watching.

The Endellion have been together for 32 years and it shows. Their ensemble was impeccable, their instruments sounded as though made to play together, and each player knew how to come through with a solo at just the right volume. It was especially enjoyable to hear Garfield Jackson’s viola soaring above the others – not easy on a viola – in those moments in the Mendelssohn when the viola has the tune.

They began with Haydn’s Opus 71 No.3, a big bold piece packed with invention in every part. They played it with tremendous gusto and feeling, where a younger quartet might have gone for the more elegant, more exquisite approach that is common today. The Endellion’s interpretation worked because they combined the power with such beautiful phrasing and such intelligent understanding of the work . Chris Darwin’s programme notes captured one such moment of magic: “but then a typical Haydn masterstroke: the cello drops out and the upper strings twitter away very staccato and pianissimo at the tops of their registers like a charm of goldfinches”. The moment came, the upper strings twittered, and it was hard not to laugh with joy at something so wonderful.

Mendelssohn’s quartet Opus 44 No.2 gives the lie to those who maintain that Mendelssohn wrote pretty but superficial music. It’s passionate and complex and I’ve never heard it played better than this. Each player was expressive but never at the expense of the ensemble playing. The fast movements were played really fast but their technique was so sure that they conveyed the hectic excitement of the music without any sense that they were in danger of coming apart. At the end of it the leader, Andrew Watkinson, looked exhausted, with justification; they had put everything they had into their playing. My only regret: they moved too quickly from the Haydn to the Mendelssohn and were in and out of the hall within an hour. Playing only two pieces should have given them time to pause and talk about what the music means to them, or what instruments they are playing on, or even a story about what happened on their way to Brighton that morning. It would have given us time to get over the Haydn and move forward nearly 50 years to the Mendelssohn. And it would have given us more of a feeling for them as people. Performers often make the mistake of thinking they are there just to play the music. In fact they are there to interact with us, the audience, through the music. It’s intimate and personal and hearing their voices and understanding their feelings about a piece are part of that.

 

The Guardian Guide for 17 to 23 December 2011 not only chooses the Elias Quartet in the Corn Exchange on Sunday morning, 18th December for its Listings Guide.   But it highlights it at the top of the page, above all other classical music events in the South as the Pick of the Week.

Review by Andrew Polmear (founder member, Strings Attached)

We were back in the Corn Exchange for this concert and it was interesting to compare the setting to the intimacy of the Dome stage where the first concert was held. The Corn Exchange is a great barn of a place, even with the raised seating area curtained off. The players sit on a raised dias in the centre with seven rows of seats around them. It’s intimate but it could never be cosy. Instead the management has gone for drama, with the players lit by white spots while the audience is washed in pale pink: only just enough to read its programmes by. It’s the Mastermind effect and signals that something serious is going on.

Few programmes could be more serious than this: three fugues from Bach’s Art of Fugue followed by Beethoven’s opus 130 ending with the Grosse Fugue.

The Art of Fugue is extraordinarily complex and clever but that does not make it sublime. What does is that Bach paints patterns which interweave through the four parts, sometimes setting the players against each other, sometimes bringing them back together.For some listeners it is enough to absorb the music, as one would look at an abstract painting. For others, the whole complexity of human life is there: the journey of a single voice through life, the joys and the chaos of human relationships, the intimacy of sex (for four), the optimism that ultimately all will be resolved.

Bach opens by stating simply his sparse theme and after the first four notes we knew that the Elias felt this piece deeply. They played the whole piece mezzoforte, every note and every phrase exquisitely shaped. By resisting the temptation to intrude an alien expressiveness they allowed the music to do the work. It’s interesting that they say they arrived at this way of playing Bach not as a policy but because, as they got to know the piece, this is how it seemed to want to be played. By doing that they have arrived at a way of playing that is close to that of specialist baroque players.

Beethoven opus 130 has similarities with the Bach: it plumbs the heights and depths of human experience and does end with a fugue. But the differences are more striking: it’s emotional range is extraordinary, from humour in the ‘dance’ movements to weeping tenderness in the Cavatina. It sometimes has what you could call a tune, but more often the parts pass musical figures backwards and forwards as they shift mood at sometimes breakneck speed. All this is technically very demanding. In the 19th century some renowed players wouldn’t play the Grosse Fugue that Beethoven originally wrote as the final movement. The Elias not only coped with those technical challenges but brought new insights to the piece. They brought out the emotional range by highlighting the shifts between loud and soft. I don’t think I have ever heard a violin played so quietly in a concert hall; the subsequent forte was all the more striking. And all was played, again, with exquisite phrasing and passionate intensity. The quartet is preparing to perform the whole cycle of Beethoven quartets round the country, and will start their Brighton Beethoven concerts in autumn 2013. It will be worth waiting for.