Francesconi, Kurtág, Ferneyhough, Dusapin: The Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti (violin), Ashot Sarkissian (violin), Ralf Ehlers (viola), Lucas Fels (cello) Wigmore Hall, London, 23.01.2007 (AO)


Luca Francesconi: String Quartet No. 4 'I voli di Niccolň'
György Kurtág: 6 Moments Musicaux
Brian Ferneyhough: String Quartet No. 5
Pascal Dusapin: String Quartet No. 5

Please read what Irvine Arditti says about the programme: Here

 

This eagerly anticipated concert lived up to expectations – it was an exciting experience. The Arditti Quartet is intimately associated with the music on this programme, having premičred three of the four pieces and worked closely with all four composers. This concert was a very special insight into state of the art new music.

It began with a tribute to one of the greatest violinists of all time, Niccolň Paganini. Francesconi’s String Quartet No 4, I voli di Niccolň is based on fragments of Paganini’s music. Francesconi has said that it was “like a journey by Paganini into present day time.” Perhaps that’s behind the first movement with its tentative, exploratory steps which then expand into spirited inventiveness. The references to folk dance are explicit, yet, despite the exuberance, this music requires precise playing. The extended pizzicato passages are carefully delineated, and at one stage Arditti holds a note for so long it seems to resonate on itself.

Kurtág worked with the Arditti Quartet on their interpretation of 6 Moments musicaux. As Irvine Arditti puts it beautifully, the composer’s “instruction comes honestly and devoutly… like a religious act.” Kurtág’s spare, aphoristic style is more sophisticated than Francesconi’s, but also animated by fleeting glimpses of folk dance, particularly in the last movement subtitled In Janáĉek’s Manier. You’re reminded of ancient traditions of village fiddlers, even when you know you are listening to exquisitely virtuoso playing. There are strange sounds, such as bells and percussion, which wouldn’t be out of place in Janáĉek, but are quite an achievement in a string quartet! In the first section, Arditti holds a legato so quietly, it seems to hover into infinity. In the second section, the whole quartet ends up in kind of jarring unison punctuated by two distinct, sudden silences. There’s another pivot point later, where darkly insistent notes seem to loop round and decelerate, until a refined purity returns.

This combination of firm strokes and extreme delicacy is fascinating. What struck me too, is the way melody seems to burst out irrepressibly, despite the dissonance, and despite the spartan simplicity of form. Perhaps that’s what makes this work intriguing, as it seems to connect, somehow, with something deep in the music subconscious. Each of the six sections contains references to music, literature and events “outside” the music as such. Section II, for example, is introduced with a quotation from a poem by Endre Ady, and then given the title Footfalls, in reference to the Beckett play. Section IV is a new version of an earlier piano piece written in memory of György Sebök. Section VI, Les Adieux, first appeared in Játékok, and then in op 34a, New Messages for orchestra. The Moments exist, thus, on several levels.

This performance of Brian Ferneyhough’s new String Quartet No 5 was the first in London. It was something of an occasion, as his last string quartet was written 17 years ago. Moreover, as Ferneyhough has said, “if one comes out of composing a new piece without being different, there’s something wrong… we should make room for discovery”. If the act of composition is also an act of self awareness, listening to new work also stimulates new ideas, and new ways of thinking about familiar things. Ferneyhough has referred the way objects rearrange themselves, such as, “after the catastrophic depredations of a whirlwind, the ruined remains of complex structures reveal new aspects of their coexistence through communal subjection to irresistible external forces”. He has also spoken of watching a row of deck chairs collapse in a gust of wind. They were still deck chairs but upended, they looked completely different.

It’s worth quoting him at length, because his images reinforce what happens in this quartet. It starts with bold, probing figures, bows stabbing out jagged chords. Ehler’s viola introduces a more sonorous undercurrent. A powerful, distinctive figure enters, a sound like a squeaking gate blowing unhinged, scraping metal against metal. Again, it’s hardly a sound you’d expect from a string quartet, but here it’s so apt and so perfectly accomplished. Arditti beats out a staccato figure that evolves into long, slow bowings on cello. Soon, all seem to be playing variations of the metallic scraping, and then there’s a dramatic solo for the cello, which Lucas Fels carried off vividly. Ferneyhough also writes short solos for the second violin, and for viola. Ashot Sarkissian made his violin sound like a samisen beating out a three note pattern. In the final section, a dominant feature is a figure, where sound is drawn out as if played on a wind instrument, hollow and sustained. It had appeared earlier, but now propels the whole piece until it gradually subsides back into the silence that prevailed before the first note sounded.

Pascal Dusapin makes much of his love of reading Beckett in his own Fifth String Quartet, also completed in 2006. Indeed, he suggests that it should be called the “Mercier et Camier Quartet” as it reflects the two personalities in the novel. It starts with downbeat pizzicato, which works, as Arditti says, like “a carpet, for a very high, bird-like solo” on the primary violin. This searching soliloquy is answered by the second violin, reinforcing the idea of dialogue. Indeed, much of the movement in the piece comes from the shifting murmurings of combinations of players, and soaring asides from the two violins. At the end, Arditti’s uplifting solo draws the piece to a harmonic conclusion. It is a warm, gentle and quite understated piece which reveals itself discreetly, and will, I think, repay further listening.

It was a privilege to attend this concert, and hear music being made at this insightful level. This was a well planned programme, the works enhancing each other. Beckett in Kurtág and Dusapin, no less, but then there are many levels in music like this. It was even more fascinating to hear the many experiments with un-string-like sounds, and the imaginative ideas!  

Anne Ozorio