Classical Music Review: Two noted string quartets leave different impressions

Artemis String Quartet

Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall Manhattan

April 10, 2018

Julliard String Quartet

Town Hall, Manhattan

April 29, 2018

The Artemis String Quartet from Berlin is innovative in several respects. The quartet, founded in 1989, was mentored by the Berg and Julliard Quartets and won multiple competetions. Unusually, they perform standing up, except for cellist Eckard Runge (the sole remaining founder), who plays elevated on a riser so he can be at similar eye level as the others. This gives the quartet an immediacy and connection to the audience that is refreshing. String quartet recitals often seem introverted, with the quartet performing more to each other than to the audience. Not here. The quartet has a refreshing gender balance of 2 women, 2 men, and their playing was superb, with perfectly matched interpretation and technique, and a balanced, direct sound that clarifies textures while maintaining flexibility and dynamic range. This concert seemed odd on the surface, with two familiar and famed quartets (Beethoven Op. 18 #3 and Bartok No. 2, Op. 17) opening the concert, followed after intermission by the less familiar (to me) Schumann String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 #1 (1842). Could the mercurial Schumann hold up to Beethoven and Bartok? Yes, quite well in this performance.

The early Beethoven D major quartet (1800), often jokingly referred to as “Mexican Hat Dance” due to a resemblance of the ending Presto to that song, was played with quick tempi, and a good balance of forceful angst and playfulness. The players really seemed to enjoy bouncing around the themes and listening to one another. The performance of the Bartok No. 2 (1917), a mostly sad and somber set of slow movements (perhaps reflecting its WWI origin) framing a central folk-dance Allegro movement, satisfyingly emphasized the contrast between the thick, dissonant sororities of the slower movements vs. the rhythmic drive of the middle movement.

The revelation to me was in the Schumann, a piece that I have never paid much attention to. I have noticed that, unlike Chopin and Brahms, Schumann’s music is often fragile, more dependent on the inspiration and musicality of the performers. He was manic-depressive, and the best performances of his piano, chamber, and orchestral music take things to the edge, not trying to sand away the rough edges. This performance achieved this ideal. The opening Introduction and Andante contrasted dissonance with tunefulness. The two fast movements, the first an edgy Scherzo, the last a Presto finale, were done quickly with marked accents, and consistently walked the tightrope between joy, craziness, and technical display. When I got home I listed to several other versions of this quartet, and noted that the Artemis' tempi were very much on the fast side, very similar to those of the Zehetmair Quartet, whose performance of the Scherzo you can hear here and whose gypsy-like Presto is here; note the strong accents and manic intensity. For me these choices seemed to really transform this piece from a pleasant romantic diversion into an innovative and manic masterwork worthy of Schumann at his best. All in all, this was a great concert from a great ensemble.

Less compelling was the Town Hall recital of the estimable Julliard String Quartet, founded in 1946, and composed of 15 different Julliard faculty over the years. The present configuration has been in place for two years, with the addition of the first female member, cellist Astrid Schween; the longest tenured member is second violin Ronald Copes, in the quartet since 1997. The comparison with the Artemis recital is imperfect, since I heard the Julliard from the back of a medium-sized hall, vs. the Artemis from the front of a small one, but stylistic differences were notable. The Julliard seems less cohesive and more first violin-dominant; I often wanted more low string sound. The centerpiece of the concert was the radical five-movement Quartet no. 5 (Sz. 102, 1934) of Bartók, notable for its catalogue of string effects (tapping, glissandos, tuning alternatives) and harmonic daring. For example, the first movement is structured around a whole tone scale: the exposition is in B♭-C-D; the development is in E; and the recapitulation is in F♯-A♭-B♭. At its best (e.g. the Emerson Quartet on records) these innovations cohere into a dynamic exploration of the possibilities of string sound. Here they felt more like gimmicks. I liked the ending folk-dance based movement best, but the quartet left an unexpectedly tame impression. I also was underwhelmed with the performance of Haydn’s Quartet in D, Op. 76 No 5 (1797). The late Haydn quartets are exploratory in structure and (sometimes) harmony; e.g. the second movement Largo is in the wild key of F# major. This performance was tame and completely unaffected by the early music movement. The second movement largo felt weighty and slow at 50 qpm, losing the sense of pulse, and the virtuosic presto finale was pokey at around 66 hpm (compared to 76-88 in most recordings). The ending performance of the Dvorak Quartet No. 11 in C, Op. 61 (1881) did not challenge my usual impression of this composer. His pieces usually feel like a mountain hiking trail that tantalizes with occasional brief glimpses of peaks and canyons, but quickly diverts back to comforting, meandering wooded pathways along pleasant streams and meadows. Nice enough, but you sometimes miss any sense of risk, danger, or foot blisters. Overall, this was a pleasant but disappointingly tame recital.