Read the June 2013 issue of Q-notes online

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In this edition we celebrate themes of recovery and reuniting with Helene’s return to the concert platform. Our concert in the Wellington Chamber Music Trust’s Sunday series on 23 June is our last in New Zealand before we head off to North America for our July tour.

As usual we have a number of projects on the go, including some exciting collaborations with rising stars of the music world.

Some of you will have received our newly designed print newsletter in the mail, in which we unveiled our Bravo! Britten 2013 series tour. There’s more about this on our website and you’ll be hearing further about the tour and how to buy tickets in the next few weeks.

J.S.BACH (arr. W.Cowdery) – Goldberg Variations BWV 988

New Zealand String Quartet
Helene Pohl, Douglas Beilmann (violins) / Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn Road, Lower Hutt
Wednesday 22nd May, 2013

I wouldn’t dream of going so far as to say that I NEVER, EVER want to hear the Goldberg Variations played on a keyboard instrument again – but all the while the New Zealand String Quartet was performing this work in an arrangement made by Bach scholar (and harpsichordist!) William Cowdery, I was transported, wafted into a world of enchantment from which all keys, jacks, hammers and pedals – anything remotely percussive – had been removed.

Or so it seemed, at the time, to me. The next day, I played my Glenn Gould recording of the work, performed, of course, on a piano, and was, to some extent, reconverted. But it’s a measure of the durability and flexibility of Bach’s music that, when presented on instruments of completely different sound-character, it seems to envelop timbre, texture and tone, and make the instrument (or instruments) seem utterly and indisputably appropriate to the occasion.

I had heard the NZSQ play this work before, in Upper Hutt, and remembered at that time being both intrigued and impressed – though on that occasion the impact of it all was, I think, diluted by having another work on the program, Elgar’s Piano Quintet. Here, in the softer, more homely and intimate setting of St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, the “String-Goldbergs” filled both time and space with sounds which, even more than the last time round, seemed to fuse both craft and content into a symbiosis of beauty and feeling.

What the string quartet version seemed to me to allow was a contrapuntal partnership of equals which the solo keyboard versions I’ve heard don’t emulate in the same way – having both the strength and individuality of a single player to a voice makes for a more dynamic kind of interaction of parts than a single player at a keyboard can provide. With two, sometimes three, and occasionally all four players committed wholly to the notes, to matters of technique, timbre, intellectual overview and emotional expression, the music’s amplitude is enriched to what I felt was a compelling degree.

As expected, the players of the New Zealand String Quartet were wholly taken up with and set aglow by the bringing together of these different elements, and reinterpreting the music’s world. Even an injured Helene Pohl was able to contribute a characteristically heartfelt first-violin line as required, astonishingly redistributing the fingerings of her parts to avoid using a recently-damaged little finger. The process made not one whit of difference to her usual vibrancy and focus – a mere handful of notes not quite in tune still resonated with that intensely musical quality particularly her own.

Here are a few thoughts regarding some of the individual variations and their place in the whole – from the outset, the group adopted a “whiter”, more austere tone than I’ve previously heard from them, effective as an opening statement of intent, a “surface” that suggested both order and contained expressive potential. From the dignity of this opening Sarabande, we were energized by the polonaise rhythm of the first variation, its running lines reminiscent of the Third Brandenburg Concerto’s finale – the repeat featured some delicious variations of tone, the lines having an engaging “stand-alone” quality, much less marked than with the keyboard version, though still as integrated.

As mentioned above, not all the variations used all four players, a textural device which, as happens with both piano and harpsichord, gives the music contrasting densities – so the Canon of the third variation, with its two-violin interaction and ‘cello bass line created spaces which, in the succeeding Passepied, the extra player joyously filled, excitingly amplifying the sound-picture.

Sometimes an individual player stole the show, as did Doug Beilmann with the “schwung” of his figuration’s rhythms in the Gigue of No.7 – at other times it was the interaction between the musicians which gave real pleasure, as when Gillian Ansell’s viola cheekily finished off Rolf Gjesten’s ‘cello phrases at the line-ends of the following Variation (No.9). Then, in the following Canon everybody had a part to play in the music’s strolling grandeur, the players (I fancied) smiling with the pleasure of it all.

The trio of variations that concluded the work’s first part were worlds in themselves, the playing bringing out by turns the music’s propensities towards delight and sorrow. No.13’s Sarabande had a kind of “heavenly length” quality, combining serenity with a mellifluous character, the occasional “catch” in the instruments’ throats on certain strings adding to the intensities. The Toccata was a clever-witted philosopher between two poets, his élan further honing the melancholy of No.15’s Canon, its wistful, questioning phrases played with wonderful poise by the ensemble, in readiness for what was still to come.

I so relished the players’ presentation of the “Grand Overture” which began the second part of the work – all very celebratory, and “orchestral” in style, though never generalized as such, but always with “point” and plenty of variation. (Incidentally, from this point on my notes began to voluminously grow!). Again there was conveyed throughout the work’s second part a kind of “joy of interaction” among the players, the two-part No.17 Toccata (arranged among three instruments, here) brimful of lines eagerly looking to interact with their counterparts. The following Canon represented a kind of fruition of this with Rolf Gjelsten’s ‘cello dancing in counterpoint with two singing violins – and if the succeeding No.19 charmed us with pizzicato-voiced dance-impulses, the following Toccata stimulated our impulsive leanings with the players’ exciting alternations of pizzicato and whirling bowed triplets!

So much more to describe! – but one must resist most of the remaining blandishments and concentrate instead on the great Adagio of the 25th Variation – the violin’s anguished leading line like a bird hovering above the ocean of the lower instruments’ sombre counterpoints. Here, the violin’s bird brought to us something of the feeling of the “immensity of human sorrow” while holding fast to the skein stretched across vast distances to the lower instruments’ quiet, oceanic certainty – a kind of depiction, I thought, of both the solitariness and surety of spiritual faith, on the composer’s part.

Several other rich and vibrant variations later came the celebrated Quodlibet (a Latin term for “whatever” or “what pleases”), the last. This featured Bach’s droll synthesis of two German folk-songs (how wonderful to contemplate those words “Cabbages and turnips have driven me away” in this context!), the players enjoying the music’s mix of friendly rivalry and adroit partnership. And, quite suddenly, it seemed, at the end, there it was – with the return of the opening Aria, it felt to us as though the music was coming home once again, having undergone its own solar orbit and experienced many world-turnings, both interactive and solitary. Now, the players’ tones seemed more in accord than counterpointed, more fulfilled than striving, more fused than disparate. Here, we in the audience were being given the well-wrought strains of sounds approximating to a divine order, a ray of serenity from chaos. We held onto those strains as best we could, but in the end we had to let them go.

Much acclaim and very great honour to the New Zealand String Quartet players! – through their sensibilities and skills we were able to coexist, for a short time, with a kind of transcendental awareness of things, by way of music whose being somehow seemed to accord with our own existence.

Link to original review

A friend said, on picking up this CD from the pile on my stereo, “What will they think of next”. I commented “Good old Naxos for going where no one has ever trod before”. At least I think I said that or something like it and it’s true. This is a fascinating and rare collection performed by a group from New Zealand, a country that has its fair share of Asian musicians and mixed culture.

The first piece is by Zhou Long, a Chinese-born composer whose work has been recorded in America where he now resides. His Song of the Ch’in is all about the traditional instrument ch’in or qin, a seven stringed-plucked zither. The improvisatory first five minutes play with the sound-world of Chinese music in differing ways. The strings are plucked with a wide range, timbre and the use of ornaments. The faster section is slightly more indebted to Western music. This intercultural liaison is typical of his music and of much that is recorded on this disc.

Many of these ‘effects’ together with the extensive use of glissandi can be heard in Gao Ping’s magical Bright Light and Cloud Shadows. Unfortunately the booklet notes tell us next to nothing about this piece but spend their time extolling the virtues of a clearly versatile composer and professional concert pianist. We are simply offered an aphoristic poem beginning ‘Spring Mountains have no near or far’ by Dan Shan Ren, a Ming dynasty poet (c.15th century) that inspired the quartet. The piece is in extended arch-shape with its brief climax at about 7:30. It uses only one or two ideas with great economy and imagination.

Chinary Ung comes from Cambodia. He went to study in America in 1964 and has never really returned home as his teaching has kept him at various academic institutes. He lost family and friends in the terrible Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s. Ung then stopped composing and when he recommenced he decided to study and to “integrate into his own personal style” a synthesis of the music of his homeland with the western art music in which he had been trained. The result is a fascinating sound-world which is difficult pin down. Tonality mixes with wide uses of pentatonic and modal shapes “deriving from the village music (and religion) of his native Cambodia”. Spiral III is one of a series with this title. Indeed the sounds do spiral around and about, moving the listener into a sort of Asian modern romanticism. It’s quite captivating.

Now, here’s a thing, I find Takemitsu’s A way a Lone – the title comes from James Joyce – the least successful piece on the disc. I normally love his music – it often reminds me Szymanowski – and have learned to listen patiently from moment to moment. The composer said that it could be akin to walking through a Japanese Water Garden and observing each individual section. However, you never return along the same path as such as it is does not really exist. From one idea blossoms another yet all are linked. Without the orchestral colours of for instance A Flock descends into a Pentagonal Garden there is a sense of aimlessness. Even so, beautiful aimlessness.

The longest piece is the last one Tan Dun’s Eight Colors. The CD booklet sums it up well “it combines the exotic timbres of the Peking opera with the Second Viennese School”. The result is a fascinating intermix in eight brief movements in which the quartet, in wonderful form by the way, are asked to imitate vocal effects heard in Chinese opera. These may be glissandi, tonal clusters, quarter-tones and all types of pizzicato and bowing techniques. Zen is the longest, full of atmosphere and a subdued spirituality. Drum and Gong does what it says on the tin being just one percussively articulated chord. The last section, Red Sona is the fastest and most exhilarating. Incidentally, my above sceptical friend found this work utterly fascinating.

The CD comes with the essay by Joy Aberdein from whom I have quoted. We also get portraits of the composers and performers except for Takemitsu. The recording is immediate but has a wonderful feel, space and spread. The performances are nothing less than idiomatic and superb. Worth investigating.

Link to original review

Helene’s injury has had a significant impact on the Quartet’s performance schedule including its upcoming March South Island tour. Where possible concerts from this tour are being rescheduled for later in the year, including at Pen-y-bryn Lodge in Oamaru, Southminster Chapel, Te Anau and Barley Fields Estate in Wanaka.

For the Christopher’s Classics concert in Christchurch on Tuesday 19 March however, the Quartet has been fortunate to have been able to call on the services of friend and colleague, violinist Martin Riseley, to take Helene’s place. Christchurch born, Martin Riseley studied at Canterbury University with Jan Tawroszewicz and played in the successful Vivo Quartet with his tutor Jan, cello tutor James Tennant and fellow student Tony van Buren on viola.

Following on he spent many years in Canada as a concertmaster and chamber musician and is well-placed to take up the demanding first violin role for this concert. He is a teaching colleague of the New Zealand String Quartet at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University in Wellington. Despite the adverse situation, the musicians in the Quartet are looking forward to having the opportunity to collaborate with Martin at this concert and believe that the audience will enjoy his strong Christchurch connections.

The programme for this concert has been adjusted to include the following works:

• Beethoven – String Trio in G Op 9, No1
• John Ritchie – String Quartet
• Dvorak – String Quartet in F Op 96 ‘American’

In this concert, besides the Beethoven and Dvorak, the performers are looking forward to playing the engaging String Quartet, recently recast by Christchurch based composer, Emeritus Professor John Ritchie.

Tickets for this concert are available from the Court Theatre Booking Office after 10 March, available with credit card or cash payment. Phone (03) 963 0870 or book online at courttheatre.org.nz. Cash-only door sales are available at each concert.

Rescheduled dates for other March and April concerts will be posted on the New Zealand String Quartet’s website as soon as they are confirmed.

“The piano is the ocean and we are the surfers,” says Helene Pohl. “And it’s a great ride!” Pohl is 1st violinist with the New Zealand String Quartet and co-artistic director of the Adam Chamber Music Festival that has just ended in Nelson. She was talking about playing a Schubert Piano Trio with cellist Rolf Gjelsten and visiting Hungarian pianist Péter Nagy in one of many performances that had large audiences on their feet applauding. Her metaphor could be modified to describe the whole event, perhaps the most successful Adam Festival yet.

Begun in 1992, the biennial summer Festival has developed into New Zealand’s major chamber music event, this year including twenty-three concerts, three master classes and a lively programme of talks and workshops. Chamber music lovers come from around New Zealand and overseas, including a good-sized group this year from Australia.

What distinguishes this Festival are the collaborations between top New Zealand musicians and their international colleagues in repertoire seldom heard here. International guests included British cellist Colin Carr, pianist Nagy, the Penderecki String Quartet from Poland/Canada and Australian horn player Darryl Poulsen. The New Zealand String Quartet took a central role as usual, with violist Gillian Ansell joining Pohl as co-artistic director, and they were joined by pianist Diedre Irons, flutist Bridget Douglas and six other principals from the NZSO, soprano Jenny Wollerman, harpsichordist Erin Helyard, the NZ Trio and many others.

Top of my list of “unmissable” concerts was the complete Bach Cello Suites, played by Carr, one of the world’s foremost exponents of this music. A large audience filled Nelson Cathedral and over three hours flew by as this remarkable musician played sublime music with effortless flexibility, colour and variety.

Other highlights followed, often introducing unusual works. One was a perfect Festival programme that took its name from the unashamedly romantic Requiem by Popper for three cellos and piano. Carr joined the cellists from the New Zealand and Penderecki quartets and the gorgeous richness of the string sound was underlined by delightful playing from pianist Emma Sayers. Nagy and Ansell then presented Shostakovich’s last work, his Viola Sonata, a poised and moving performance of a dark work of which the final Adagio was as heart-breaking as promised by Ansell in her introduction.

The Adam Festival has always included New Zealand composers and Waitangi Day provided a focus for this, first by celebrating three generations in a lunchtime programme. 91 year old John Ritchie from Christchurch introduced his melodious autobiographical String Quartet, played with care and respect by the Penderecki Quartet. The New Zealand String Quartet then premiered the 5th String Quartet by Ross Harris, Ritchie’s student in the 1960’s. Songs from Childhood is brilliantly composed, an elusive, fragmentary piece, and the musicians overcame technical and rhythmic challenges to capture its subtle dream-like language. The NZ Trio completed the programme with a foot-stomping account of the powerful Greek folk-tune-inspired Helix by John Psathas, himself a former student of Harris.

Later Jenny McLeod’s stunning new song cycle He Whakaahua a Maru (A portrait of Maru) for soprano, flute and piano was premiered by Wollerman, flutist Karen Batten and Sayers. This extended work, based on poetry in Maori by McLeod and Mike Nicolaidi, included rhythms of haka and poi, exquisite writing for piano and flute and a highly dramatic role for the soprano.

A better performance than Nagy’s of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words that preceded the new McLeod is hard to imagine. Shapely melodic lines sang from the piano and accompaniments flowed like water over stones. The evening ended with the Schubert Trio mentioned by Pohl above, a work running the emotional gamut and a performance demonstrating exquisite rapport.

Not all programming worked perfectly for chamber music connoisseurs. An enjoyable day trip to the tiny modern chapel at St Arnaud on Lake Rotoiti included an intimate concert by the fine Penderecki Quartet, but the audience would have preferred complete string quartets to the movements offered, particularly after hearing part of an arresting Quartet by Czech composer Ewvin Schulhoff. However, the initiative of “music in beautiful settings out of town” was highly successful and will be repeated at future festivals.

Other delights included the popular Bach by Candlelight concert, with a faint chorus of cicadas and fading light outside the Cathedral’s stained glass windows, a fascinating Ligeti Horn Trio, a bold performance of Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A, and the evening concert, Rhapsody, where the audience in a sold-out auditorium was thrilled by Carr with Irons in Rachmaninoff’s ecstatic Cello Sonata in G minor and with the NZ String Quartet in Schubert’s Quintet in C.

The New Zealand and Penderecki Quartets ended the Festival triumphantly on Saturday with Mendelssohn’s Octet. There was throughout a true festival buzz in the air as audiences spilled out into balmy Nelson evenings and I’ll certainly be there in 2015 for another exhilarating ride on the chamber music waves.

Link to original review

The Kings Place, London project. A week-long series of events in London curated by the New Zealand String Quartet, featuring New Zealand arts and artists.

European tour to Ireland, Slovenia, Croatia and the Netherlands.

Week-long concert tour to the Jeju Isles Festival in South Korea.

Five-centre tour to the United States and Canada.

Five-concert tour of UK summer festivals.

Performed concerts at the New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington, featuring works by Barber, Shostakovich, Harris and a collaboration with New Zealand baritone Jonathan Lemalu premiering a new Gao Ping work.

Opening performance at the Leipzig Book Fair as part of the New Zealand as Country of Honour programme for the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, in concert with New Zealand soprano Madeleine Pierard.

Residencies in Australia at the International Chamber Music Festival, Canberra and Crossbows Festival, Brisbane.

Performed and recorded the Lyell Cresswell Concerto for String Quartet with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Recorded Douglas Lilburn’s string ensemble works in Toronto for the Naxos label.

Released new CD Asian Music for String Quartet on the Naxos label.

Celebrated the New Zealand String Quartet’s 25th Anniversary with an event at New Zealand’s Parliament House.

Tutored and mentored 25 young musicians at the annual Adam Summer School in Nelson.

On CD, the group’s latest release, Asian Music for String Quartet, is an illustrious addition to the NZSQ’s impressive catalogue.

Ironically, this engrossing programme is exactly the same as a concert the musicians gave at last year’s Auckland Festival – a memorable evening marred only by the fact that it drew one of the smallest audiences I have ever experienced in the Town Hall Concert Chamber.

Zhou Long’s Song of the Ch’in is a sonority-soaked opener. Evoking a Chinese zither, the composer comes up with an ingenious parade of pizzicato; yet in among the multifarious pluckings, each player weaves wonderfully tinted strands of melody.

Cambodian composer Chinary Ung was present at the Auckland concert when the NZSQ played his Spiral III, and extremely happy with the performance.

On disc, his clever cultural blendings that embrace harmonies on the bluesy side are even more inviting.

Works by Christchurch-based Gao Ping and the Japanese master Toru Takemitsu sit well together, mid-album.

Gao Ping’s Bright Light and Cloud Shadows, which has been in the group’s repertoire since it was commissioned for them in 2007, is more reflective, expertly gauged by the players so that murmurs of Bartokian urgency never quite ruffle the essential calm.

Takemitsu’s A Way a Lone, with a title from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, sounds as if lush Straussian harmonies have been strained through a Monet painting in a grand moment of synesthesia. One marvels at the way in which the players (and the recording) allow individual voices to emerge subtly from the wash.

Tan Dun’s Eight Colours is an old NZSQ favourite. Checking out two earlier performances against this Naxos recording, magnificently captured in Toronto’s St Anne’s Church, one hears a new assurance in bringing these visions of traditional Peking Opera to vivid theatrical life.

New Zealand String Quartet: Asian Music for String Quartet (Naxos)
Verdict: “A brilliant and exotic journey with our country’s foremost musical foursome.”

5/5 stars

• Link to original review in NZHerald
• See full tracklist and listen to excerpts from the CD on our Recordings page
• Buy online/download the MP3
• Buy the CD

Peter Mechen reviews last Friday and Saturday night’s Wellington performances of Beethoven’s late quartets.

Link to original review

String Quartets: No 13 in B flat, Op 130 (with the Grosse Fuge as its finale); and No 14 in C Sharp minor, Op 131

Church of St Mary of the Angels
Saturday 8 September, 6.30pm

This concert brought to an end what might well be considered a pinnacle in the career of the New Zealand String Quartet. The quartet’s earlier achievements have been distinguished enough, with their complete cycle of Bartók’s quartets and the Naxos recordings of the complete quartets of Mendelssohn. And it has had an important role in enhancing New Zealand’s reputation as a country that places high value on the arts and music through tours every year in North America and very widely in Europe, not to mention the important contribution to music in New Zealand, for example through the biennial Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson, guided by quartet members.

Beethoven’s late quartets fall into two groups. Prince Galitzin had first asked for ‘at least’ three quartets and Beethoven delivered the first three (Opp 127, 130 and 132; Op 132 came before Op 130 in its completion) in 1825 and early 1826. He then continued to complete the two further quartets: Opp 131 and 135, and then in response to his publisher’s urging, he wrote the alternative finale for Op 130, and left the replaced Great Fugue as Op 133.

The New Zealand String Quartet decided here to follow a growing trend worldwide, to put the Great Fugue back in its place as the last movement of the wonderful B flat quartet, Op 130.

I should first remark on the visual beauties of the church, many candelabra and the massive columns supporting the arches around the sanctuary lit from below; the players in spotlights with just enough light for the audience to look at the names of movements. The two men wore standard black while the two women wore most elegant floor-length skirts of shimmery black and grey.

Now the music.

This quartet does not produce a sound that became familiar in the earlier part of last century; dark and burnished, evoking a religious feeling that might have been appropriate in this setting. Their sound is warm enough, particularly Douglas Beilman’s violin and Gillian Ansell’s viola, but what this quartet’s instincts veer towards are the sounds that have given them such authenticity in Bartók and Ravel and, I think, Mendelssohn.

The last quartets, at least the three that depart markedly from the conventional four-movement shape, continue to be quoted by today’s avant-garde composers to support a defence of very general non-acceptance by claiming that Beethoven in these works had far outrun his audiences and that they were not understood for many decades. That is not true: apart from some formal misgivings and the sort of discussion that still takes place about the way the bits relate to each other, they were played at once and widely appreciated. The famous French commentator, Joseph de Marliave, for example, writes: “Certainly there was recognised here extraordinary beauty but marred by blemishes and passages of inexplicable obscurity. One gains the impression of admiration mixed with an uneasy, even awestruck astonishment.”

Accessibility certainly poses no problem in this, Op 130 (nor of course in any of them), and its six distinct movements make the relationships between and within movements easy enough to follow; the mood generally is sanguine and even touched with gaiety, though infusing its melodiousness with a sort of luminous spirituality. I smiled at the remark about the banality of the Presto, second movement, in Rolf Gjelsten’s programme note (I wonder how he feels about the Presto in Op 131); I can see how this might arise, but it’s a mistake to hear a moment – and it’s very short – of esprit, a flash of self-mockery, as a flawed passage. Happily, its role was perfectly captured by the quartet’s performance, as it follows the multitudinous emotional experience of the first movement, offering us a uncomplicated pause to prepare for the beauty of the not-so-slow, Andante movement which seems to hesitate occasionally between contentment and grief.

There was a charming curve to the rhythmic shape of the beguiling, barcarolle-like melody of the Alla danza tedesca that lent special appeal.

Listening to the Cavatina never fails to touch the emotions strangely, more with its sheer beauty than through the expression of the composer’s pain, and this performance conveyed it in the form of acceptance and peace.

I have become more used to this movement being followed by the Great Fugue in certain recordings, and its size, weight and determination now seem indispensable in providing emotional balance to a work that might otherwise be heard as being somewhat dominated by a lightness of spirit. And this was a superb, unrelenting, though wonderfully varied, performance, making the quartet’s entire three-quarter hour length not a minute too long.

The C sharp minor quartet is considered by many the greatest of them all; Beethoven himself apparently did. It presents a more obscure form to a new listener because its seven movements are played without a break, so it is useful to follow it with a score on first hearing.

If profundity is rather the same as an expression of deep feeling, rapture, grief, playfulness, here is the quartet that qualifies. The fugue that opens the first movement has a very different character from that which ended Op 130. Its tonality never seems to settle and fresh, evolving ideas arise. The programme note here, and most that one reads are of little real help in the absence of the score. Failing that, only careful repeated listenings will lead to enlightenment, of committing its main features to memory.

The impression of the quartet is rather that of a fantasia whose shape is determined by impulse, but which has no less or weaker artistic integrity for that.

The heart of the quartet is movement 4, Andante, an extended set of variations, based on a melody of melting beauty, and containing passages that often drew attention to individual episodes such as the rapturous dialogue between Helene Pohl’s violin and Rolf Gjelsten’s cello in the Piu mosso variation. Its very length, about 15 minutes, is itself a marvel in terms of its overwhelming hypnotic force.

The task of investing the movement with musical coherence, as well as creating an emotional landscape that will take hold of the emotions, even of the spirit, is the greatest challenge of a performance. Did the New Zealand String Quartet quite succeed in sustaining me, you, through this journey? I’m not sure; even with the help of the atmosphere of the church, the lighting, the sense of occasion, my attention drifted occasionally, yet their playing was of a very high order in expressiveness, richness of tone, of subtle dynamic and rhythmic variety.

But responses to music are very personal, and it is usually much more useful to admire the outward characteristics of a performance which here comprised unity and balance, the beautiful individual performances that often reveal striking personal insights, and the sustained feeling for the architecture of each quartet.

Much of the series, under three different promoters has been heard in the main centres as well as certain provincial cities; the Beethoven cycle was the most fitting way for the quartet to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and will have been one of the year’s absolute highlights wherever it was heard.

Link to original review

Beethoven Quartets Op.127, Op.135 and Op.132

Helene Pohl / Douglas Beilman (violins)
Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

St Mary of the Angels, Wellington
Friday 7 September, 2012

Guest reviewer: Antony Brewer

I have been attending New Zealand String Quartet concerts since the early days and while I am suspicious of saying such things, just now it feels as if this may have been the most wonderful of all. I have heard these superb musicians playing the most technically demanding works with style, fire and finesse. This evening, however, was as befits the music, on another plane altogether.

As Beethoven’s deafness isolated him, it seems he listened more and more to his inner voices and paid correspondingly less attention to the expectations of the outside world. One will never know whether his internal processes were uniquely original in terms of form, harmony and texture and he beat them into some acceptable form, or if the deafness simply accelerated an already maturing originality.

Beethoven was known to have said to the violinist Shuppanzigh, “What do I care about your violin?” when the hapless musician begged the composer to simplify some of the parts for his instrument. Certainly, the technical demands upon the players are enormous. One has only to observe the sheer effort of concentration, the split-second timing required and the sheer mechanical skill required playing this music. And this is before the interpretive issues are addressed and they must surely be among the thorniest in the repertoire. This is a mysterious factor in play: how do four musicians assimilate the vast spiritual and emotional forces at work here?

The great pianist Artur Schnabel is known to have said that “I am only attracted to music which is greater than it can be played”. One thinks of these quartets instantly as fulfilling this requirement. No matter how wonderfully traversed, the map, as Alfred Korzybski once observed, is not the territory.

A short note about introductions. I thoroughly enjoy them. They bring me into the music and the musicians’ passion and respect for it. I find the informality adding greatly to my pleasure and hope the quartet will continue this approach in the future.

And the maturity of the quartet is quite startling. Do they feel any real nervousness? As it seems, they come onto the platform as if striding into an adventure, a profound journey which they are about to take with us, the audience.

A further mystery is for this group to have such familiarity which each other, to sense the others’ direction and subtle inflections of tempo and phrasing while seeming to lose no aspect of their individual musicianship. I find their standing to play brings forward the full expressiveness of body language and while Rolf Gjelsten sits, he is almost dancing forward on his tiptoes to join the others, shaping the music with every part of his body. I particularly enjoyed watching his smiling joy in the music.

Gillian Ansell, that nonpareil among violists, always brought out the singing and speaking voices in Beethoven’s writing, relishing every one of the numerous gifts traced into these scores

Doug Beilman is also a highly expressive artist and a perfect complement to Helene Pohl, the first violin. He addressed his violin as though it were a sentient being somehow organically connected to him and is a powerhouse of technique and passion for the music with the ability of the truly gifted to anchor and participate at the same time, allowing his violin partner to soar into the ether as her spirit takes her.

Helene Pohl’s sense of “innigkeit” and subtle beauty of phrasing was deeply moving for me. She is an intensely musical artist able to provide the most delicate shadings of tone and shaping to the music. Dynamics and transitions between sections within movements were managed as if the works were growing before our very ears.

As a programme this worked extremely well: Op.127 is a massive work as is the Op.132. Placing the somewhat lighter, almost divertimento-like Op.135 in between acted as a slightly astringent sorbet, exciting as well as cleansing the palate. The “Heilger Dankgesang” of Op.132 was among the profound musical experiences of my life. The final five minutes of this had me feeling as if I were on another planet. Exquisite.

After many years of knowing this music I found that my understanding of it underwent a paradigm-shift under the influence of these musicians’ profound insights. One can remain sure that these interpretations will not be cast in stone and will continue to develop, fine as they are already.

Link to original review