Playing with ravishing commitment

New Zealand String Quartet & Terence Dennis (piano).
String Quartets in F Minor by Mendelssohn and in A minor by Brahms; Piano Quartet in E flat by Schumann.
Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University, 26 May

The New Zealand String Quartet is not just the quartet you listen to when there’s nothing better from overseas; they are better and more enchanting in every aesthetic sense than most of our visitors.

To begin – dress, assisted by designer Tracy Grant: shades of mauve and purple, draped elegantly, even the carpet matched their clothes. They were spot-lit amid a darkened auditorium: a magic scene, enhanced by an acoustic that just loves chamber music.

The quartet has been stable for about seven years, and it shows they are world-class. The best of the evening was the Mendelssohn and Brahms.

The F minor was Mendelssohn’s greatest quartet, the product of grief at the death of his sister and premonition of his own death a month later. None of Mendelssohn’s usual facile piety here, and the playing was tight, impassioned and dramatic.

The quartet saw Brahms in an unusually romantic light, vitalised nevertheless by a wonderful grasp of shape and timing: this was an opulent, heart-easing performance where the harmonies and colours glowed in their rich variety. The expansive second movement was the chief glory.

Much as I love Schumann, his melodious piano quartet seemed emotionally less deep than its companions. In his fluent and thoughtful pre-concert words Rolf Gjelsten characterized Schumann as at his best when emotion was touched by craft (Mendelssohn, the opposite) and this is a good example – a product of the fancy rather than the imagination.

Terence Dennis’ piano contribution was fluent, sonorous and illuminating, but occasional flaws suggested that more time together would have been useful.

The first of the Wellington concerts in this two-concert series, before a near-full house, demonstrated the benefits of devising an interesting concept around which pieces are assembled, talked about briefly and then played with ravishing commitment.