Outstanding breadth of expressive capabilities

Magnificent: The New Zealand String Quartet makes a guest appearance in the Great Hall of the Goettingen Chamber Music Society

Young composers who follow the “established” names of contemporary music often have difficulty finding a wide audience. Chinese composer, Gao Ping, born 1970, and living in New Zealand, is lucky to have, in the New Zealand String Quartet, some contemporary music advocates who play his works. The quartet played Ping’s composition, Bright Light and Cloud Shadow during a concert they performed in the Great Hall.

The work is supposed to sound like a paintbrush on paper, explained Gillian Ansell, with reference to a review that describes the impressive piece. It is not the hasty scratching of cheap ballpoint pens that can be heard, but the movement of a paintbrush doing calligraphy. Some slow, fine strokes, which soon become broader and then taper off again, can be heard, as well as some marked accentuation, often provided by the cello in this work. It is a fantastic, moving piece of music and the quartet interpreted the wealth of lyrical associations magnificently.

The outstanding breadth of expressive capabilities that the musicians had at their disposal was evident from their interpretations of the String Quartet in B Minor from Opus 138 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and the String Quartet in G Major, D 887, by Franz Schubert. Both works were performed admirably, although the Shostakovich did have one tiny blemish, if one was hoping for a little bit more depth of sound in the slow opening and closing sections of the single-movement work. In that sense, it took the Schubert piece to silence any lingering doubts about the quality of the musicians, who met with thunderous applause from the audience.

Schubert’s progressive work launched a whole new language in chamber music, of constantly switching between major and minor key, with frequent harmonic breaks, which take it to the limits of tonality. Again and again, the restlessness of the piece is interspersed with deceptive idylls. Compact tonal passages produce a symphonic quality, to which the New Zealand String Quartet did full justice. Yet, despite the dramatic nature of the work, the musicians never stooped to any ill-considered effects, and the result was an interpretation of great earnestness that was free of contrived correctness and full of vitality. It was an inspiring concert, with the quality of execution and the sophistication of the programme superbly bringing out the best in each other.