Question: In what concert hall of the world is it possible to enjoy the performance of a highly regarded chamber music ensemble while looking out the windows at stunning harbour views with a few navy vessels, the stage setup for an outdoor opera performance of Madame Butterfly, while a 290 m long cruise ship with over 4000 passengers on board sails graciously by? Answer: The Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room, of course, where the Brodsky Quartet finished its mini-residency on Sunday afternoon with a brooding program.
It was only fitting that this group of fine musicians with a 50-year-old pedigree (give or take a few changes in the ensemble) would perform in the illustrious Opera House, which is also celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. The hall was packed (with even an earlier member of the Quartet in attendance) and the expectations were high, especially as the first item on the program was a transcription by violist Paul Cassidy of JS Bach’s Violin Sonata in G minor, BWV1001. Ostensibly, the idea of arranging Bach’s three solo Violin Sonatas has some merit, as all of them include a complex, multi-part fugue, suitable to be written out for different instruments. Yet, the parts seemed to amount to less than the whole here: the massive technical difficulties of performing three or four contrapuntal parts on one violin require a natural flow of breathing from both the player and the playing technique. This was less noticeable here, or perhaps just shaded by different types of vibrato from the players, apparent, for example, in the last resonant chord of the Adagio. Elsewhere, the musicians formed identical phrases in slightly different ways, which may be a positive in some repertoire, but disturbed the unity of the Bachian majesty here.
In the weekend’s mini-series, Benjamin Britten’s three opera (plural for opus!) for string quartet took centre stage. On this occasion, it was the far too seldom-performed String Quartet no. 3 in G major, Op.94, the dying composer’s last completed work, on the program. (Britten needed a personal assistant to write down all the details). The clarity and subtlety of this composition is astonishing; the composer managed to express human emotions – here, arguably fear and desperation above all – dressed in a mid-20th century musical language, yet still sounding accessible in the carefully drawn arc of five movements. The first violinist, Krysia Osostowicz, had to imitate bird songs in the third movement, without becoming an epigone of Olivier Messiaen’s sounds. Cassidy was instructed by the composer to play on the “wrong side of bridge” in the Burlesque and the two original members of the quartet, second violin Ian Belton and cellist Jacqueline Thomas, often had to present clashing dissonances and rhythms. It was a finely worked-out performance where nothing was left to chance – and at times, I wished some things had been. The sense of a secure performance in general overcame the excitement of the syncopations of the Ostinato, the slowly expanding overtones on a C note in the Solo movement or the tragic, desolate feeling of the Passacaglia.
It was in the final item, Franz Schubert’s String Quartet no. 14 in D minor, D810, where it became clear that beautiful visual surroundings notwithstanding, a concert should be primarily a feast for the ears and not for the eyes. Any great performance of this composition, taking its variation movement’s theme from the Schubert song Death and the Maiden, depends on effervescent sonorities, delicate melodies and turbulent menace in its drama in equal measures, all of that delivered to the audience through a myriad of sonic colours.
This hall, despite its appealing views, is cursed with an uncovered concrete ceiling and one concrete wall; the glorious harbour can be seen through a long wall of glass panels, in front of which the artists were seated. There was natural afternoon light outside and even with some spotlights on them, they were hard to see and their sound often came through as harsh and ordinary rather than sublime. Perhaps, if seated in front of the only wood-panelled wall, the acoustic reverberation may have been enhanced. As it was, for example, the obstinate pattern of the dactyl variation felt more laborious than passionate, although the return of the theme at the end of the movement was truly beautiful.
Occasional technical glitches aside, this quartet still has a lot to offer with the wealth of five decades’ worth of experience. Hopefully they can enjoy performing together as much as their audience loves listening to their versatile repertoire.
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