Yesterday I attended an Open Rehearsal with Alfred Brendel and the Szymanowski Quartet at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. It was part of Brendel's visiting professorship at Cambridge Uni and they were playing Beethoven's Quartet in A minor op 132
I am ashamed to say that I didn't already know the quartet - Beethoven didn't exactly favour the harp in his writings so he is left off my Christmas card list every year. I used to love playing some of his sonatas on the piano - in particular the Pathetique in C minor - but I can't say I love ALL his music so I have never rushed out to buy discs of his string quartets. Anyway, on hearing the piece for the first time, there were parts that were incredibly beautiful, parts that were rousing and dramatic, but a lot of it I found a bit dull, and I think that was because of the stuffy concert hall, the dry acoustic and the slightly tense situation of an open rehearsal with a very famous musician!
At 80 years of age, Alfred Brendel's energy and passion for the music totally eclipsed the quartet's, I'm afraid. He took the class seriously, not playing for laughs with the large and respectful audience, although there were some laughs - often at the expense of the quartet when they couldn't quite pull off Brendel's desires. Brendel even gave up on one point when the quartet just couldn't respond as well as he hoped. I shouldn't make judgements here because I can understand the tension of the situation and everyone plays their instruments worse in lessons! If I was having a lesson with Alfred Brendel, I can only imagine the sweaty palms and many mistakes. However, it wasn't mistakes that were occuring within the Szymanowski Quartet - it was a slight lack of trust and unity.
I loved the cheerfulness of the leader and his violin sound was positive and full of different colours - individually he responded brilliantly to what Brendel asked for. The second violinist was clearly passionate about every note of the music and I loved his style and tone - an excellent musician and communicator. When hearing the viola player in a few solos within the piece, it was clear he could play brilliantly - however, for the ensemble he was the weakest member, not bringing that vibrant viola colour and personality when it could have added so much. The cellist was adorable and had a beautiful sound with bags of personality to boot. When he relaxed from the tricky scene of the rehearsal he brought out the finest qualities of his own playing and really came up to Brendel's demands for change and a new sound. So, individually, there was a lot of great musicianship on show - it just left me a bit flat as a whole.
You will think I am being overly critical and having listened to a quartet of obviously great quality I feel like I must be being over critical. I am now going to look up the quartet and discover that they probably get brilliant reviews everywhere they go and are praised for the subtle communication where I completely missed the communication, but I wanted to give you the honest opinion of how I felt.
When I returned home from Cambridge yesterday I really enjoyed my practise and was able to apply Brendel's wise words about phrasing (he is the MASTER of phrasing, as you probably know) he "loves long notes" and made us love them too! Brendel was looking for absolute dedication to the composer's markings, but also reading well into the markings to find the character that was suggested by them. I loved this. He would not accept a 'pianissimo' sound where a 'piano' was marked and was not a fan of the quartet's transparent, glassy tone when playing soft.
There was palpable relief within the audience when a little 'fast but small' vibrato was applied to the violin tone in a 'piano' line, dramtically warming the melody. This gave us all the slightly odd feeling of being in on a joke that was rather at the violinist's expense, however he took it very cheerfully! Admirable attitude :) I imagine the glassy tone sounds extremely effective, mesmerising even, in a more giving acoustic, but in the dry concert hall it was lost on us.
Both the quartet and the audience were hanging off Brendel's every word, though, and this insight into his mind and methods was an inspiration and a rare privilege, made possible by CRASSH, the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities in Cambridge. Thank you very much to CRASSH for providing this event, completely for free to all who registered!
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