The music breathed life

The cycle of 17 string quartets and the Grosse Fuge by Beethoven make up one of the great watermarks in Western music, and no string quartet embarks on a voyage through them lightly.

The New Zealand String Quartet arrived in Wellington having completed the journey four times in 2000, and the first Wellington cycle is being done concurrently with Hawke’s Bay. As well, the NZSQ has performed many of the quartets individually over recent years, and has become extremely familiar with the myriad musical revelations the quartets offer.

So it was no surprise that the first concert, in a series of six, should give playing of enormous assurance and understanding.

A little surprising was the apparent rightness of it all; tempos always seemed completely natural, dynamics and balances were entirely just, and above all, the music breathed life.

Surprise came with the knowledge that this is not a maturely aged group of players. They are still comparatively young musicians with many years of Beethoven quartet playing ahead of them. And their playing will change.

Their view of the works will change – not improve, just change.

They have clearly chosen with great care the order in which the quartets are to be performed. Here we started with the first Beethoven composed, Opus 18/3, a youthful work, followed by the fiery Opus 95 quartet from 1816, and finishing with the pivotal F major quartet Opus 59/1, the first of the Rasumovsky quartets, which chronologically fits neatly between the other two. The sequence was very satisfying musically and, with the playing, enhanced the enjoyment for a large audience.

It is clear that full cycle will, however, bring more than enjoyment, with the abiding virtues being a scrupulous adherence to the music, and the completely straight unaffected nature of the playing.