SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW
 

Mendelssohn, Brahms:  Wihan Quartet. Wigmore Hall, 11.30am 5.6.2010 (CC)

 

Mendelssohn - String Quartet in F-Minor, Op. 95.

Brahms - String Quartet in A-Minor, Op. 51/2.

What a miraculous way to spend a Sunday lunchtime!. This was in many ways the perfect quartet coupling for a short concert. Mendelssohn’s F-Minor Quartet, Op. 95, is a work of much depth, and drama. No polite drawing room music this, as the opening tremolandi attest. The Wihan Quartet, possessed of that beautiful Czech warmth, nevertheless gave the stormy first movement its full due – right from the off, this was no easy opener, but a worthy bedfellow to the mighty Brahms A-Minor that followed it.

Mendelssohn’s argument is compact and determined in the first movement. Fittingly, he follows it with a scherzo and not the slow movement (which is placed third). The restless scherzo had its undercurrent of unease emphasised by a near-perfect sense of ensemble. The end of the Scherzo, beautiful light pizzicato, was pure magic; as was the beautiful outpouring of the Adagio (with accompaniments perfectly judged). And how dark was the finale (an Allegro molto). Oscillating figures seemed to hearken back to the appassionato of the first movement (which is actually marked as “Allegro vivace assai”).

The Wihan Quartet places the viola on the outside, deepening the sound, as is only appropriate for a programme such as this. The Brahms A-Minor is a work predicated on contrasts. The Wihan’s sound was at its warmest for the first movement (wonderful exchanges between the violins near the opening). Theirs was a reading characterised by natural flow. Perhaps that wonderful lilting second subject could have been that bit more human, that bit more gemütlich. No complaints regarding the Andante moderato, its opening emotionally given and its troubled, Hungarian-style central section (again tremolo-driven) the perfect contrast. As was the scampering middle section of the ensuing Quasi-Menuetto. Only the finale deserves some qualification, occasionally seeming to lose direction in this performance. The Hungarian elements surfaced nicely again, though.

The Mendelssohn was the finest part of the morning, though. There was an encore: Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 20 arranged for string quartet. The announcement didn’t give an arranger, but odds on it was William Zinn (given that the Wihan Quartet has recorded all of the Caprices arranged by Zinn on Nimbus Alliance NI6113). Great fun – not sure I could take an entire disc of it, though.

Colin Clarke