Anyone who has read Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music knows the level of involvement, the homogeneity, of a string quartet. So it is with the Doric String Quartet, the early passions of the initial Beethoven quartet producing plenty of facial expressiveness – and, when it came to the finale of the Haydn, a very typical Haydn finale, the smiles showed their delight in the music.
It was, as cellist John Myerscough explained, a rather unusual concert in that all the works came from roughly the same time period. We began with the most intense, Beethoven’s Opus 95, where from the opening we are in an impassioned, aggressive world. Melodies never have time to develop in the stop/start drama of the composition. Some calm is restored in the second movement with its truncated fugal structure, but the turbulence of the whole piece is only calmed in the closing bars with a surprisingly Haydn-esque end to the finale. The Doric gave full value to the abrupt changes and dynamic contrasts.
At this point Myerscough told us of the joy working on a new Haydn piece brings – and it was obvious from the quartet’s treatment of his Opus 50/5. Despite the beauty of the second movement, a sense of fun settles over the whole work, whether in the first violin’s elaborations of a simple theme in the first movement or the energy and inventiveness of the finale. Alex Redington coped with the flamboyant sections admirably and Myerscough, as ever, provided the onward momentum.
Now the clever part of the concert planning moved back to a time when Beethoven was Haydn’s pupil for his Opus 18/2. It was fascinating to hear Beethoven sound like Haydn – with added modernity. The opening movement gave scope to Yume Fujise (violin) and Helene Clement (viola) while still retaining that feel of a Haydn string quartet. The main differences came in the middle movements – a slow movement with an unexpected rapid section and a Scherzo rather than a Minuet – but the finale found Beethoven having fun with false endings – just like his tutor.
Myerscough again had the story behind the encore, the slow movement of Elgar’s String Quartet, the favourite piece of Lady Elgar and played at her funeral. The gravity and solemnity of much of the movement was relieved by the wistful “Englishness” of the theme that surfaced periodically.
Opera North’s programme at the Howard Assembly Room is eclectic, to say the least and it’s good to find Haydn and Beethoven string quartets taking their place alongside Courtney Pine and Manchester Collective.
Reviewed on 3rd November 2022
