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Haydn and Gesualdo: Hilliard Ensemble, Chilingirian Quartet, Wigmore Hall, London, 8.4.2009 (GDn)

Haydn: The Seven Last Words from the Cross, op.51 (publ. 1787)
Gesualdo: Responsoria in Parasceve (publ. 1611)


Music for Holy Week, but with a twist; you'd expect nothing less from Carlo Gesualdo. His Good Friday Responsories are rarities in live performance, a fact easily explained by the immense difficulties they pose for the singers. They are heavy going for the audience too, so interspersing them with Haydn’s more civilised, and considerably less traumatic, Seven Last Words strikes an appealing balance between substance and digestibility.

The Hilliard Ensemble are brave souls. They perform Gesualdo’s wayward harmonies and erratic voice-leading permutations with commitment and panache. The group has come close to monopolising this repertoire, their ECM release of Gesualdo’s music for holy week is the only complete recording currently available, and the programme performed this evening will also be given in Valencia, Berlin, Oxford and Nicosia over the Easter period. But competent as they are, they certainly don’t make it sound easy. Responsory 1 Omnes amici mei dreliquernut me is a plunge straight into the deep end, with terse six-voice polyphony, no discernable imitation between the parts and few even transitory stable pitch centres. The acoustic of the Wigmore Hall is not ideal for this sound; it favours the countertenor and bass voices, but renders the middle voices indistinct. The precision of their ensemble suggests that the singers hear each other well enough, but each faces daunting challenges in reconciling their own line with its harmonic and contrapuntal context. Sustained notes, more often than not in the uppermost countertenor part, are held over radically shifting harmonies, and there is a tendency for the pitch to waiver simply through the instability caused by these accelerated tectonics. Another of Gesualdo’s nasty tricks is to write descending leaps of a 4^th or 5^th in the vocal lines while simultaneously moving to a distant harmony. The singers often struggle to find their destination pitch, but who can blame them? The whole Gesualdo performance was a stimulating, if unnerving, experience, sensations intensified by the inevitable feelings of empathy for the singers.

The Haydn seemed a heaven of tranquillity by comparison. Interspersing the two works polarises the stylistic contrast, a perception emphasised by the classical formality of the Chilingirians’ interpretation. Any urges to romanticise Haydn’s expressive phrasing are steadfastly resisted, highlighting the music’s devotional roots at the expense of its humanity. The quartet perform with a strident, often forceful tone, as if trying to fill a much larger space with their sound. In another programme the results might seem intimidating, but as interludes from the excesses of Gesualdo they come over as enforced neutrality, dragging the ear back to familiar tonal territory. Sadly, the quartet’s performance was dogged by intonation and ensemble problems. The simple octave or unison textures that open each movement were often badly out of tune, and while pitch issues were usually resolved within a few bars, the following textures often lacked co-ordination and often failed to reach a consensus as to when chords should end. The strident interpretation style only served to highlight these inaccuracies.

But technical flaws aside, it was the lack of expression that frustrated most. While some other quartets could be accused of performing the music of the late 18^th century as if it were from the mid 19^th, the Chilingirian have veered to the opposite extreme. It’s just too classical, and too restrained, even for music written for Good Friday observances in the late 18^th century. I couldn’t help the feeling that, had Haydn been here, he too would be yearning for more dynamic variation and some rubato to shape the phrases. Although what he would have made of the Gesualdo is anybody’s guess.

Gavin Dixon


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