Intensity, rapture and imaginativeness to playing

It’s a pity about the string quintet. Though it enjoys a much smaller repertoire than the string quartet, it contains some of the most beautiful of chamber music. We usually have to wait till a spare viola (or sometimes a cello) player comes along to join the normal string quartet. The visit of a German violist Hariolf Schlichtig provided the opportunity.

In the 1988 arts festival, one highlight was a series of Mozart’s quintets and Brahms’ sextets. No comparable mini-festival series has taken place since. Unfortunately, though the group is playing, in concerts in other places, two other Mozart and the other Brahms quintet, I hear of no plans to give the other concert in Wellington.

The New Zealand String Quartet was playing at its very best, but the presence of a visitor seemed to add another level of intensity, rapture and imaginativeness to their playing.

It was interesting that Schlichtig chivalrously ceded the first viola position to Gillian Ansell in Mozart’s G Minor and the Brahms quintets, in both of which she enjoyed conspicuously warm and lyrical melodic episodes. All one could really say about Schlichtig’s playing was that is was perfectly in harmony in spirit and ensemble and evidently proved an inspiration to them.

It was, rather, Rolf Gjelsten’s cello that drew attention to itself in many places, such as the Adagio of Mozart’s D Major and the Allegro of the G Minor.

Though Mozart accords prominence to the first violin part, which Helene Pohl filled brilliantly, Douglas Beilman, on the second violin succeeded in drawing attention to Mozart’s love for the middle parts.

Mozart’s G Minor quintet is much the greater and more entrancing work, and so it emerged. In fact, its performance was better than that of the lovely Brahms work, in which they took a little while to coalesce. The rondo-form second movement made full amends, and, in the finale, a fugal romp, the five players delivered a fleet, accurate and brilliant end to this superb concert.