Impressive Debut

Founded in 1999, the Ébène String Quartet is a relatively new voice in the chamber music world. The youthfulness of this quartet extends to their repertoire, with works from the core repertoire, contemporary music, jazz and pop music. A quick search on Youtube reveals the ensemble performing music from the film Pulp Fiction as well as a tune by the Beetles.

This talented ensemble made their debut in Vancouver last night under the auspices of the city’s Friends of Chamber Music, in an intense and rather dark-hued programme of quartets by Haydn, Bartok, and Mendelssohn.

In his Quartet in F Minor, Op. 20, No. 5, Haydn establishes the F Minor tonality right at the outset of the work, and this rather dark key colour extends to the Menuetto as well as the fugue of the final movement. Rather unusually, there isn’t much relief in the Haydnesque humour that we so often find in his quartets, symphonies and piano sonatas, but the composer does give us a brief respite from the intense emotion in the beautiful Adagio movement, with its lovely solo for the first violin. In the 4^th movement, Haydn, again unusually, gives us a fugue, thereby taking us away from the 1^st violin-dominated texture of the other three movements. The young quartet played this work with impeccable tightness in ensemble and poise, and the intense and difficult 4^th movement fugue was carried off with panache, leaving the audience breathless from this intense conversation between the four instruments.

It is a blessing that the six quartets of Bartok have now really become a core of the string quartet repertoire. The Ébène gave us the relatively short but intense Quartet No. 3, Sz 85, composed in 1927. The four “movements” are played without interruption, and the effect is that of an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. In some ways, the denseness and brutality of the final section serve as a relief, a catharsis from the tension that had been building from the first notes. The players rose to the technical, musical, and emotional challenges of the work, and gave us a performance that moved as well as stunned the audience.

As much as Felix Mendelssohn is considered a “great” composer, there are so many of his compositions that are not often performed. We can think of the first two symphonies, many of his piano pieces and chamber works, as well as the oratorios, music that never really made it into the standard repertoire of orchestras and solo players. I am grateful to the Ébène Quartet for giving us a beautiful performance of the composer’s Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13. Reading the Quartet’s website, I found out that the players have been championing the quartets of Mendelssohn, both Felix and Fanny. They recorded Mendelssohn’s Op. 13 and 80 Quartets, as well as the only string quartet composed by Fanny Mendelssohn, the composer’s beloved sister.

In spite of the string writing that is typical of Mendelssohn - delicate and fleeting runs for especially the violinists - we find in works such as the scherzo movements of his Qctet and the incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream; this is a highly serious work, emotionally as well as musically. I believe that the most telling sign of a great performance is the silence of the audience between movements. Last night, it seemed that the audience did not even dare to breathe during the pauses. At the end of the fourth movement, when Mendelssohn recalls the musical material of the Adagio movement, there was a brief silence before the applause and ovation commenced. The musicians accepted the plaudits graciously, but did not grant us an encore, perhaps feeling that the mood of the three quartets performed would have been broken with an additional work.

As ever, there were empty seats throughout the small hall last night. Where were all the young people in the city who are taking music lessons? Those who missed last night’s concert, perhaps not knowing the name of the ensemble, certainly deprived themselves of a very special musical experience.

Chamber Music Evening

The Han-Setzer-Finckel Trio was in town yesterday as part of the Friends of Chamber Music series of concerts. The trio, comprising pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer and cellist David Finckel, essayed Felix Mendelssohn’s towering masterpiece, the Trio No. 1 in D minor, and Antonin Dvořak’s Trio in F minor, Op. 65. Mr. Finckel and Ms. Han opened the concert with Richard Strauss’ rarely performed Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 6. Setzer and Finckel are no strangers to Vancouver audience, as they regularly appear as members of the Emerson String Quartet.

Richard Strauss’ Cello Sonata is a charming work, written when the composer was seventeen. The idiomatic piano writing is similar to that of the composer’s youthful, but unfortunately also rarely played, Piano Sonata, Op. 5. In the third movement, there was a particularly charming exchange between piano and cello. At this point in his compositional career, Strauss’ style is still firmly rooted in the early 19^th century, with the result that the music sounded almost like Schumann.

There are pieces of music whose “message” will come across regardless of the performance; there is also music that calls for a greater effort in the part of the performers to bring alive. The Strauss Sonata belongs, I think, to the latter category. To my ears, the performance needed greater projection. The ensemble between pianist and cellist was flawless, but I guess I was wishing for a bit more “soloistic” playing from the individual player, a bit more abandon.

In spite of his genius, many of Mendelssohn’s music sound, to me, effective rather than moving. There are of course notable exceptions – the E minor Violin Concerto, the Scottish Symphony, the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the work performed last night. In these works, one feels that the composer was divinely inspired. Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D minor is one of the crown jewels of the chamber music repertoire. As individual musicians and as an ensemble, the trio certainly met the musical as well as (considerable) technical challenges the work calls for. Mendelssohn was himself a virtuoso pianist, and the piano part in this trio is as demanding as the composer’s piano concerti as well as the Variations Serieuses, Op. 54. Pianist Wu Han played her part as if these difficulties do not exist. My only minor quibble would be a slight heaviness in the piano playing in the second movement, there was a sense that the pianist was marking the beat rather than projecting the line of the music.

In the second half of the programme, the trio performed Dvořak’s very Brahmsian F minor Trio, Op. 65. The influence of Brahms is most apparent in the first and fourth movements, with the result that, especially in the first movement, the music sounded like the composer was too much in the shadow of his mentor. I thought that Dvořak’s own compositional genius did not really come through until the second movement, with the third movement sounding particularly inspired. The performance by the trio was spectacular. I was especially moved by the exquisite violin playing of Philip Setzer in the gorgeous Adagio movement, where the composer favoured the violinist with an unbelievably beautiful melody.

With such distinguished musicians performing, it was a little disappointing to see a half-filled hall last night. A friend, a long-time subscriber to the series, told me that there used to be waiting list for subscription to these concerts. The sparse attendance to this wonderful performance serves once again as a reminder of what role the arts play in our society today. I do hope and pray that the Friends of Chamber Music, now in its 65^th season, will be able to continue to bring to our stages world class chamber ensembles performing music from this, the purest form (and most democratic) form of music making.