Two things can render a reviewer, especially an accidental one like myself, speechless (you wish!): total perfection and total disaster. But it is after all one’s task to say something, even if it is, as in my case, a mere exercice de style and an undue imposition on my dearest and closest friends’and family’s patience. In the case of total disaster, and unless you feel really bitchy or have an ax to grind, the shorter the sweeter. But when you are faced with perfection, I guess you want to rave, praise and extol to your heart’s content, however redundant and verbose you are bound to get.
Having said this, I will proceed to try to curb my enthusiasm in order to avoid those pitfalls and make some relevant and sedate remarks about last evening’s superlative performance by this still young string quartet, founded ten years ago by a group of students of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofia in Madrid.
I met violinist Vera Martínez Mehner, and the brothers Tomás, Abel, the violinist, and Arnau, the cellist, in Madrid around 1995 or 1996, when they were classmates of my cello teacher Asier Polo at the above mentioned school. I tried not to miss the concerts by the school orchestra, or the many chamber concerts and recitals that the school organized, as I knew that the “superior” in the school’s name was no mere rhetoric. The handpicked students were obviously musicians of the highest caliber, as is now, a decade or so later, confirmed by their brilliant careers. Cuarteto Casals, Asier Polo, Sol Gabetta, Arkadi Volodos, Eldar Nebolsin, to name only those I knew best, are names that you now find on every concert-hall marquee and CD covers in the world. At that time, Vera and the Tomás brothers were already playing together regularly. I did not know the quartet’s violist, Jonathan Brown, as he never went to Reina Sofia and is in fact not the Casals’s original violist. I would have to do some research on that, but it is even less relevant than the rest of the comments I would like to make.
They played last evening at the Konzerthaus, in the Kleiner Saal. I feel I have been making the grand tour of the Konzerthaus, having been to the Grosser Saal several times, to the Weber-Saal once, and now to the Kleiner Saal for the first time. There is also an Apollo Saal, which I have yet to visit. But then, I did have the great thrill of playing there myself, in the Grosser Saal, obviously, as the Publikumsorchester Lothar Zagrosek assembled for one thrilling evening, to play the 1st movement of Dvorák’s 9th , consisted of no less than 160 musicians! I was one of 29 cellos, my voice blissfully drowned. The Kleiner Saal is as deliciously Rococo as the others, in shades of turquoise instead of the wedding-cake white of the Grosser Saal, but much better suited to a chamber concert.
The four musicians made a resolute entrance, in keeping with the authority and assurance with which they would play all evening. They obviously know their business and take it very seriously, which does not mean dourly. It simply means that nothing is left to chance, that all four musicians have a spectacular technique but that it is just a means, never an end, as is alas the case for many young musicians today. They polish their interpretations to a point of total brilliance. Their unbelievably clear and accurate intonation, the clockwork precision of their timing, the perfect cohesion of their dynamics, the masterly elegance of their reading result in a tone quality rarely achieved even by the best string ensembles. And yet, it all flows naturally, like a deep, intelligent heart-to-heart conversation, with constant eye contact creating an almost palpable bond.
I think my attempts at restraint have failed miserably. I was just thrilled with this recital, what can I say? The qualities I mentioned in my dithyrambic remarks were first demonstrated in the grace, wit, and refinement with which they played Haydn’s op.33. Then came a breathtaking Bartók, the 4th quartet, in which rhythmical precision and superbly engineered dynamics played a major role. Finally, after the intermission, Ravel’s F major quartet was by turns sweet and serene, vivacious, almost languid, skittish and restless. If I had to pinpoint the quality which struck me most in the Casals Quartet, I think symbiosis and convergence are the words I would choose.
My admiration for this quartet is so great that I can’t even think of a witty comment to break the gravity of this account. Well, I would have a word to say about the violinist’s attire, a pretty ugly bare-backed beaded bustier orange dress that did absolutely nothing for her and seemed supremely uncomfortable, but that is more catty than witty and way out of line.
And now, you can all take a deep breath of relief. A whole month without my scribblings,which absolutely does not mean that I have had my say. Unfortunately for you, I have discovered something I like to do even better than crossword puzzles.