United Kingdom Various: Fibonacci Quartet (Luna De Mol, Kryštof Kohout [violins], Elliot Kempson [viola], Findlay Spence [cello]). Dora Stoutzker Hall, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, 27.11.2025. (LJ)
Haydn – String Quartet Op.33, No.4, in B-flat major (1781)
Fergus Hall – Three Hours After High Water (2025)
Bartók – String Quartet No.5 (1934)
This concert constituted a journey through the evolution of the string quartet. From the first note to the final applause, the audience were taken by the hands of the immensely talented Fibonacci Quartet on a memorable adventure. Naturally, it began with Joseph Haydn ‘the father of the string quartet’. They then transported us to the west coast of Scotland where the string quartet adopted an altogether more contemporary form via composer Fergus Hall. Finally, almost as if answering the question ‘how did we get here?’, the Fibonacci Quartet guided us back to the European continent, specifically to the expansive plains of Hungary, playing one of Béla Bartók’s string quartets.
If Haydn is known to us as the father of the genre, perhaps Bartók could be referred to as its grandson (we mustn’t forget Beethoven in this extraordinary family tree!). By taking Haydn’s expressive Classical form in new formal, structural, and thematic directions, Bartók himself enabled composers to introduce yet newer forms, structures, and musically innovative ideas into the quartet’s framework. The Fibonacci Quartet took us on this journey of the string quartet with impressive gusto, precision, texture, and intelligence.
In a review of a concert by the Fibonacci Quartet from May (here), Glyn Pursglove lauds the musicians’ exquisite music-making. He adds that their performance (also at Cardiff’s Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama) ranks ‘amongst the very best performances by a string quartet that [he has] been fortunate enough to hear’. To that, I simply add: ditto!
Each of the instrumentalists – Luna De Mol (violin), Kryštof Kohout (violin), Elliot Kempson (viola), Findlay Spence (cello) – played wonderfully, with Kohout’s determined attack of his instrument in the pieces by Bartók and Hall standing out. This so-called attack did lose him a few bow hairs (especially in the first movement of the Bartók), but this was a small price to pay for his rhythmical accuracy and timekeeping.
The Fibonacci Quartet set the tone, and a high bar, with Haydn’s String Quartet Op.33, No.4, in B-flat major. Often referred to as the ‘Russian’ Quartet due to its dedicatee, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia and its performance at the Viennese apartment of his wife, the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorova, this piece is known for its wit and whimsy. Due to the theatricality in many of the composer’s works, it may come as no surprise that, in his youth, Haydn took a job as an accompanying musician to a comedic actor. In fact, Haydn wrote over two dozen works for the theatre during a thirty-five-year period (c.1751-96) that was bookended by German Singspiel composition. Performers of this string quartet in particular need to convey a sense of fun and genuine enjoyment when playing this piece.
As with writing comedy or drawing a smile, conveying musical jokes can be much more difficult than expressing those more Germanic Sturm und Drang emotions. The remark that one of the hardest things to paint is a smile is often associated with none other than Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. To evoke its enigmatic smile, da Vinci used a technique referred to as sfumato which involves the delicate blending of colours and subtle gradations of light and shadow. Musical jokes are not entirely brought about by contrasting ideas so a similar sfumato technique is required to evoke the wit and humour in a piece like Haydn’s String Quartet No.4. This involves excellent timing and subtly contrasting dynamics conveyed through flawless bowing technique. In the piece’s finale (Presto), the Fibonacci Quartet were careful to not entirely give in to Haydn’s almost slapstick theatricality with his grand pause, hints towards the Hungarian gypsy rhythms associated with his more famous ‘Bird’ Quartet (Op.33, No.3), and pizzicato gestures. In this closing movement Haydn may emphasise lightness and humour, but he never fully relinquishes darkness or sorrow from the cantilena in the preceding Largo that was played with intention and clarity by Luna De Mol.
Bartók composed his Fifth String Quartet in just one month during 1934. It was commissioned by the wealthy Chicagoan, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who supported several chamber music groups and composers during her lifetime. The piece broadly follows an arch structure and draws on folk music – two identifiably Bartók elements. Interestingly, the central movement is a Scherzo in the Bulgarian (not Hungarian) style which follows a pattern of uneven rhythms in 9/8 grouped as 4+2+3 quavers. In this Scherzo alla bulgarese, the rhythm is introduced through the cello which interchanges between pizzicato and arco. Findlay Spence was rhythmically in control and played with the expressivity required to give this complicated movement its propelling lilt.
When introducing this piece, Spence suggested that Bartók was influenced by the nature to be found in the great Hungarian plains. Some years ago, I travelled through the Alföld on my way to the country’s eastern city of Debrecen. When I crossed the River Tisza and stopped for a night in Hortobágy (the region’s national park), I noticed three sounds relevant to the slow movements of Bartók’s piece (the Adagio molto and Andante): the constant wind, the take-off and landing of phalanxes of white storks, and the percussive hooves of the grey cows on the dry earth. That atmosphere of expectant stillness unique to this impressive region is evoked by Hungary’s three creative greats: poet Sándor Petőfi, painter László Moholy-Nagy and, of course, composer Béla Bartók. I do not know whether the Fibonacci Quartet have travelled through Hungary’s great plains, but, if they do, they will surely hear the inspiration behind those highly textured and evocative movements.
Fergus Hall’s compositions mostly stem from his sense of wonderment for nature and topography. When interviewed for the Young Classical Artists Trust in October this year, Hall discusses how he often incorporates, folk music, experimental music, contemporary Scottish jazz, and sound art into his classical compositions.
For Three Hours After High Water (premiered by the Fibonacci Quartet at the Wigmore Hall this October), Hall took inspiration from the inhalation and exhalation of the sea, and, in his own words, found himself going down ‘a big rabbit hole about tides’. The piece’s title refers to the moment when the tide turns. Accordingly, the music coveys the turbulence and dynamism of the water as it meets the land during this moment of change. Sounds of the sea’s bathymetry come from the lower stringed instruments whilst the frenzied surface of the water is evoked by the two violins. By the end of the piece, the highly pressurised water finds release as it flows into the open sea. The Fibonacci Quartet were particularly skilled when playing this piece of highly contrasting dynamics. Their attack during the opening frenetic section was truly engrossing and they counterbalanced this in final section of the piece which required some (but not total) platitude and release.
When contextualising Hall’s piece, Luna De Mol told us that the RWCMD was becoming a ‘second home’ for the Fibonacci Quartet as they enjoy teaching and performing at the venue in their position as Resident Quartet. It is my hope and, judging by the audience’s enthusiastic enjoyment of the concert, the hope of local music-lovers alike that the RWCMD will remain the Fibonacci Quartet’s second home for years to come.
This concert highlighted the Fibonacci Quartet’s deep understanding of the trajectory of the string quartet as a musical genre. It also allowed them to showcase the range of their repertoire whilst demonstrating their musical voice, which combines vitality and directness with precision and balance. If that is not enough, they charmed the Cardiff audience with their encore: an arrangement (written, we were told, on train journeys!) of two songs from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. I hope to hear their version of ‘I Loves You, Porgy’ again. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, each member of the quartet is an excellent listener and, as a result, they make music as a whole rather than as four musicians each playing their part. This musical unity could be seen as well as heard (no pun intended) as they sat close together, giving visual cues through eye contact and facial expressions. If they continue in this vein, their musical voice will undoubtedly make them one of the great string quartets.
Lucy Jeffery