Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
New Zealand String Quartet
Soundscape 2
Pah Homestead
September 1
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
The New Zealand String Quartet’s “Soundscape 2” concert at Pah Homestead covered a period of just over two hundred years and featured work by Haydn, Janacek, Shostakovich and Leonie Holmes. It was a thrilling concert which showed the groups finely honed technical abilities along with an intelligent and sympathetic approach to the music.
Haydn’s String Quartet Op 71 was one of the first of his quartet which were played in public as opposed to the more intimate court setting of most of his previous works. This probably needed a new approach which can be heard in the opening dramatic chords of the four players which is a grand piece of musical theatricality.
The work featured some furious bowing from Helene Pohl leading the group through Haydn’s elegant and ingenious musical passages which the players effortlessly resolved.
The group displayed a musical unity each player aware of the other, the sense of connection bonding particularly evident in the second movement where the melody slides from one instrument to the other in a joyous conversation.
While the work has many vibrant melodies there was an occasional undertone conveyed by Rolf Gjelsten’s cello suggesting another dimension beneath the filigree of the other strings.
The dance like third movement with its gypsy-like sounds saw Peter Clark’s feverish violin butting up against the bucolic tone of the cello in a fine display.
The final movement was full of graceful playing ranging from delicate whispers to dramatic flourishes along with some well-judged pauses as they raced to the hectic climax.
The work of Leos Janacek has often addressed issues of human predicament such as his String Quartet No 11 or “Intimate Letters” which is musical representation of the hundreds of love letters he sent to Kamila Stösslová which were not reciprocated.
This representation of a tortured mind was also the basis of his Quartet No 1, The Kreutzer sonata which is based on a Tolstoy short story of a man whose pianist wife has a relationship with a violinist and which leads to his killing her.
Where the Hadyn work lacked an emotion element the Janacek work had both a strong narrative feel and an emotion depth
In the quartet, Janacek attempts to depict the woman’s emotional and psychological torment as she struggles with her relationships, the music providing passages of beauty and contentment alongside depictions of torment and savagery.
The players conveyed moments of passion, stilted conversation and anguished thoughts while there were references to the Beethoven sonata.
At times their playing was a mixture of the surreal and psychotic with the instruments becoming frenzied and tense in a depiction of increasing anxiety. As well as the expressive music there were the facial expressions of the players by turns soulful, grimacing and detached.
Quiet passages intermingled with savage bursting sounds depicting dilemma and frustration conveyed by the darkness of the cello and the ferocity of the violins.
There was at one point a melancholic dialogue between the first violin and cello, followed by a strained as violin and viola played close to the bridge, the discord conveying the woman’s plight.
The final movement opened with a soulful requiem like passage filled with sadness and reflection and this was followed by some rapid and aggressive playing and a savage intervention by Gillian Ansell’s viola before the ecstatic conclusion .
After interval they played Leonie Homes’s “Fragments II” which focusses on the notion of communication, linking the sounds of the instruments to that of wildlife communicating. The work references the way one musical idea suggests another. The instruments rousing themselves, slowly becoming aware of how they can communicate with each other, testing themselves as though doing warm-up exercises on their own, responding with answering calls and then showing off their fine sounds.
The final wok on the programme was the Shostakovich String Quartet No 2 written a few years after his Leningrad symphony and displays little of the heroic defiance of that huge work. The quartet includes references to Jewish and Russian folk music and is a more joyous work.
Like much of his work the quartet weaves together the composers conflicted idea about public and private music. Here he is following the party line with a support for the Russian victories in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ as well as a reflection on the struggles of the country against the Nazi onslaught.
There is a parallel ambivalence as the composer reflects on his own life, his struggles with authority and his own desire for freedom.
He weaves together celebratory melodies with conflicting and contrasting moods. There are soaring passages along with sequences of the music overcoming obstacles, all representing the struggles of Russia and himself and we hear harsh sounds of the physical and mental obstacles.
There are some sorrowful passages derived from traditional Jewish music played by Helene Pohl which were taken up by the other players and in the last movement a lonely solo by Gillian Ansell and the work finishes with passages shot through with grief amongst the sounds of celebration and wonder.
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