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.

The Czech Nonet

It was an embarrassment of riches last night in Vancouver – the opera presented their second performance of La Bohème, Paul Lewis played a recital of late Schubert sonatas, and the Friends of Chamber Music presented the Czech Nonet in a programme of Wagner, Prokofiev, and Dvořák.

Formed in 1924, the nine players of the Czech Nonet, a combination of wind and string players, play a wide array of repertoire, from the Baroque to the 20^th century. Of great interest to me was their performance of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, one of the composer’s most lovable and loving works. I had only heard the work performed by a full orchestra, and so I was very curious to hear this scaled-down version of the piece (the original score was scored for 13 players.)

Siegfried Idyll was beautifully executed by the Nonet. However, I do have a quibble with extremely slow tempo they set for the opening which, to me, went against Wagner’s marking of bewegt – lively, or with motion, roughly translated. For me, the tempo of a piece of music is of secondary importance, as long as the players can maintain the tension within the music. In this case, however, the extremely leisurely opening tempo makes the tempo relationship with the other sections irrelevant. Shortly after the opening, Wagner writes Noch mehr zurückhaltend – still more holding back, which became difficult since the opening tempo was already so “held back.” I feel that Wagner is warning us against the danger of the piece becoming too static, since he fills the pages of this relatively short work with instructions in tempo changes. Only in the final bars did Wagner use the word langsamer – slower. Again, this becomes less meaningful since the opening bars were already played so slowly.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Quintet in A Minor for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Bass, Op. 39 shows the composer at his sardonic best. To me, the sense of humour found in this work is almost an extension of the black humour one finds in the scherzo movements of Mahler symphonies; bits of the writing for winds even reminds me of Webern. I remember the delight Prokofiev took in imagining how the players look when they play certain passages. I think the composer would have been pleased and tickled by the performance last night. The players obviously relished the many technical and musical challenges the work offers, and brought out the sarcasm and humour that is inherent in every one of the six-movement work.

After the interval, the entire ensemble returned and essayed Antonin Dvořák’s Serenade in D Minor for winds, cello and double bass, Op. 44. According to the programme notes, Brahms was impressed enough with the work to have recommended it to his friend Joseph Joachim. The charm of the piece is that it does not pretend to be more than what it is – a simple but beautiful piece of music that aims to delight. From the opening march, reminiscent of Mozart’s wind serenades and Schubert’s German dances to the jubilant finale, the players conveyed their love for the score, and performed it with all charm and gusto. The slow movement, marked Andante con moto, brought out especially ravishing playing from the wind instrumentalists.

Considering all the musical events that were available last evening, the concert had a fairly good house. In this difficult economic climate, I do hope that the Friends of Chamber Music, now in their 65^th season, will continue to bring Vancouver audiences this purest form of music making.