Vine, Berg and Schubert: Australian String Quartet, City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney, 07.03.2007 (TP)

 

Vine, String Quartet No.3

Berg, Lyric Suite for string quartet

Schubert, String Quartet D810 'Death and the Maiden'

 

When the members of the old Australian String Quartet disbanded part of the way through last year's subscription season, the organisation behind them invited the Sydney-based Tankstream Quartet - Sophie Rowell and Anne Horton (violins), Sally Boud (viola) and Rachel Johnston (cello) - to relocate to Adelaide and assume the mantel.  It was a shrewd move.  As the Tankstream Quartet, they had won a string of prizes at chamber music competitions at home and abroad.  They bring to the Australian String Quartet name an already established ensemble sound, a fresh approach and enormous potential.

 

It was apt that the new ASQ should open its first full season with an Australian string quartet, and Carl Vine's third quartet was an excellent choice.  Composed in a single movement, it relies heavily on tight ensemble to achieve the effect of having the four instruments of the quartet play as “a single large instrument”, to quote Vine’s programme note.  Tight ensemble is what the ASQ achieved.  They seized the opportunities to display their collective virtuosity offered by the rapid outer sections of the piece.  By contrast, the slow central section gave each of the player a chance to shine as an individual, as a lovely bitter-sweet melody emerged from the rich voice of Johnston's cello, and was passed through Boud's characterful viola and the light gossamer-textured sound of Horton's violin, to the sweet, centred tone of Rowell’s Guadagnini.

 

Their performance was finely honed and served as a fresh reminder of what an excellent composer of chamber music Carl Vine is.  He is currently writing a fifth string quartet, due to be unveiled at this year's Huntington Festival in Mudgee.  I look forward to hearing it.

 

The rest of the programme was dedicated to the Alban Berg Quartet, and in particular to the ABQ’s late violist Thomas Kakuska, with whom the ASQ (in Tankstream days), had studied in Germany.  Both the Berg Lyric Suite and Schubert’s D Minor quartet were ABQ specialities.

 

The ASQ’s performance of the Lyric Suite emphasised the lyrical, romantic qualities of the writing.  There was plenty of virtuosity in the increasingly angry and bitter fast movements (movements 1, 3 and 5), and slower movements featured some affecting playing.  The solo lines in the second movement were passed around like fragments of a half remembered love song.

 

After interval came Death and the Maiden.  The first movement moved at a good pace, flowing rather than frenetic.  The playing was tidy, and the contrast between the terrifying opening theme and the bucolic second subject was sharply defined.  The theme and variations of the second movement were also played with character and contrast, with Johnston's cello sounding rich and warm in the second and fifth variations in particular.  The ASQ made two interpretative choices that I did not agree with.  In the first movement, Rowell slowed the tempo periodically between sections with an expressive flourish, dissipating some of the music’s momentum.  The quartet also made unmarked pauses between the variations of the second movement, which again hampered the music’s momentum somewhat.  No complaints about the final two movements, though, which bristled with energy and impressed with close ensemble and sharp dynamic contrast.

 

The new ASQ’s first subscription concert for its first full season augurs well for the future.  Its talented members are still growing as musicians, and their audience will surely grow with them.

 

 

Tim Perry