Last-minute redemption for disjointed quartet
The Kuijken Quartet, Charles Luney Auditorium, July 12
You could blame the frigid weather outside, but there were moments when Wednesday night’s Chamber Music New Zealand Christchurch performance by the visiting Belgian string ensemble, The Kuijken Quartet, threatened to become frozen in its tracks.
The indefinable chemistry which fuels any chamber music ensemble seemed to be absent in the first half. The players appeared to be isolated from each other in a performance which lacked a sense of personality. Obviously the engine driving the music was running cold. This was especially frustrating given the richness of the programme – two mature Mozart quartets and one of Haydn’s sunniest chamber music compositions.
While the professionalism of the performance by the Quartet’s individual members – Sigiswald Kuijken (violin), Sara Kuijken (violin), Marleen Thiers (viola) and Michel Boulanger (cello) couldn’t be faulted, there were moments when it sounded purely perfunctory. An engagement with each other, the music and the audience, was simply not there.
This was particularly apparent in the Quartet’s interpretation of the Mozart String Quartet No 18 in A Major where the musical textures sounded dry and pinched rather than richly dramatic as Mozart intended. In some passages, even the balance between the individual players seemed strangely askew.
This mood continued through to Haydn’s Quartet No 30 in E-Flat Major (‘‘The Joke’’). It’s a robustly elegant piece; an aristocrat striding through the drawing room in muddy boots. Papa Haydn composed music which is both polished and witty. But again the dynamics were wrong and the good humour became a pinched smile.
It wasn’t until the final work – Mozart’s String Quartet No 21 in D Major (‘‘The Violet’’) – that things belatedly warmed up. The first in a series of quartets composed for Frederick William of Prussia oozes nobility and charm. With his sponsor’s abilities as a cellist firmly in mind, Mozart astutely injected some of his best music for cello into the composition.
Boulanger seized the opportunity, especially during his musical ‘‘conversations’’ with the viola. His elegant technique, sensitivity and obvious pleasure in the music finally brought the entire ensemble to life in a poised, colourful performance which, for this reviewer at least, redeemed the evening. – Christopher Moore