United Kingdom Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart: Matthew Hunt (clarinet), Chiaroscuro Quartet (Alina Ibragimova & Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux [violins], Emilie Hörnlund [viola], Claire Thirion [cello]). Wigmore Hall, London, 29.10.2023. (CS)
Haydn – String Quartet in D, Op.33 No.6
Mendelssohn – String Quartet No.2 in A minor, Op.13
Mozart – Clarinet Quintet in A, K581
The Chiaroscuro Quartet have a distinctive and adventurous approach to the Classical repertory, playing with gut strings and period bows, using vibrato sparingly, and emphasising the ‘lightness’ of the music in order to highlight the quality and nature of the voicing. Their performances are always thought-provoking, often strikingly – even unnervingly – so. A recital at Kings Place in 2018 prompted me to suggest that ‘[t]hough at times the results may be idiosyncratic, even puzzling, the Chiaroscuro’s unceasing exploration and experimentation can offer startling and refreshing illumination and insight’. However, on this occasion at Wigmore Hall I wasn’t entirely convinced by the perpetual pushing of boundaries, seemingly in the pursuit of some sort of ‘enigmatic’ essence. At times, there was such an ‘unbearable lightness of being’ that the music seemed to be blanched of its naturalness, its warmth.
Perhaps to appeal to potential subscribers, in December 1781 Haydn described his set of six Op.33 quartets as having been written ‘in a completely new and special way, for I haven’t composed any for 10 years’. There’s certainly a ‘popular’ feeling to the Op.33 set, driven as they are by rhythmic energy and comic touches – perhaps informed by his experience of opera buffa – with cheeky scherzos replacing elegant minuets. The Chiaroscuro’s performance of the last of the six (they’ve recently released a disc of Nos.1-3, so presumably the remainder of the set will follow shortly) was notable for its vitality: tempi were brisk, conversations were crisp, and textures were airy. But, there didn’t seem to me to be much ‘joy’ here. That’s not to suggest that the musicians had not cherished their exploration of Haydn’s musical arguments and exuberance, nor that they were not relishing their dialogues and debates, responding to each other during the performance. Certainly, enormous care had been taken to examine and evaluate every musical gesture. But, the tendency to slip into sotto voce secrecy – searching for ethereality? – seemed to me to rob the music of its natural glow and wit.
Certainly, there was drama and unpredictability, as well as keen contrasts. The Vivace assai was fleet and the players bows often seemed weightless, so fluid was their phrasing, with unexpected accents taking one unawares. The Quartet’s second violinist Pablo Hernán Benedí was on this occasion replaced by Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, who in 2021 won the grand prize at the Young Classical Artists Trust and Concert Guild International Competition and is leader of the prize-winning Quatuor Confluence who are currently young artists-in-residence at the Fondation Singer-Polignac in Paris. There wasn’t so much a search for a richly blended sound as a deliberate highlighting of the very individualised tone of the separate voices. A withdrawn quality prevailed in the delicately scored Andante, though the Scherzo was perky and bright, with a lovely lilt that seemed inclined to push forward as the players exploited the rhythmic drive, creating some exciting counterpoint and exchanging roles as melodisers and accompanists with deftness. The concluding rondo-variations had robustness as well as nuance, Claire Thirion’s cello playing particularly eloquent.
A change to the order of the programme led us next into Mendelssohn’s A Minor Quartet Op.12, composed in 1827, the year of Beethoven’s death and undoubtedly influenced by the latter’s Op.132 quartet in the same key. The introductory Adagio – which Paul Griffiths describes as being like ‘the cover on the volume … a back cover as well as a front, enclosing the music and setting it somewhat in quotations marks’ – was articulated with deliberation, imbued with a sombre import. The ensuing Allegro vivace was characterised by vivid, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, weight and air, always urgent and pressing, until the somewhat brusque closure, the lower strings’ quite ferocious chords silencing the first violin’s final scurrying ascent. An inner tension seemed to haunt the restrained Larghetto, with its asymmetrical fugal unfolding and surprisingly chromatic harmonies. Eschewing vibrato, the Chiaroscuro made the movement seem quite archaic in spirit despite its forward-looking formal and harmonic innovations.
The poise of the Menuetto – the theme was shaped with beautiful simplicity by Ibragimova – was dashed aside by the harum-scarum scherzo, which shimmered with vigour, its final reprise segueing into the tremolando which initiates the Presto, with its striking cadenza-recitative opening for the first violin. There was much forceful, vehement playing in this final movement but, for all the Chiaroscuro’s thought-provoking intensity and attention to detail – and, thinking of the youthful Mendelssohn getting carried away by his own creative inventiveness, pushing the boundaries of the genre and the form – I’d have liked a bit more sense of Romantic free-spiritedness.
After the interval, Matthew Hunt joined the Chiaroscuro in Mozart’s ever-popular Clarinet Quintet, performing on a beautiful basset clarinet and exploiting the sweet glow of the instrument’s extra low notes. Hunt’s recording with the Elias Quartet was acclaimed by BBC Music Magazine as ‘the benchmark recording of this much recorded work’, and the clarinettist did seem to bring the sunshine with him into the Hall, playing with warmth and fluidity, seeming to spontaneously initiate conversations with the strings and responding to their replies with graciousness. There was a lovely sense of theatre, as if the instruments were characters in a play. Tempi were again on the brisk side, and occasionally the ensemble was not pristine, but the Allegro had some invigorating tension, with agitated motivic development and rapid modulations creating a sense of restlessness. The strings’ tone again felt a little restrained, to me, in the Larghetto, but the Minuet was jovial and robust, the clarinet cheerily insouciant. The Finale felt quite sombre at times, rather than a gleeful romp through the variations.
There was much musical meat to chew over here, and whatever my few misgivings, the large audience at Wigmore Hall was warmly appreciative.
Claire Seymour