Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Monday 31st May 2021.
Australia needs another string quartet like Australia needs another string quartet, especially one of this calibre. Say 'hello' to the
Alma Moodie Quartet, named for an Australian violinist of a century ago.
All four members have impressive careers as soloists and ensemble musicians. Kristian Winther may be remembered in Adelaide for his time with the Australian String Quartet. Second violin, Anna da Silva Chen, has toured with Selby and Friends and has established her own chamber orchestra. Though Australian, violist Alexina Hawkins is usually based in Berlin, where she has a flourishing career. 'Cellist, Tom Marlin, is well known to Adelaide music lovers for his versatility and a music practice covering baroque, classical, and contemporary performance.
Their rehearsals took place across the eastern states, impeded by lockdowns, with an intensive period here in Adelaide at the start of a tour to Dubbo, Canberra, and Sydney which is almost already sold out. That the four had impressive talents to bring to the quartet, it was the startling rapport that has developed so quickly that made the concert so memorable.
The first work on the short program was Beethoven's string quartet in E minor op 59 no 2, one of the set of Rasumovsky quartets, named for Count Andreas Rasumovsky the Russian ambassador to Vienna who commissioned them in 1796. Beethoven introduced a Russian tune into the third movement.
Even if you've listened only rarely to string quartets on the radio, you'll know this one, especially for the joyful final bars. The quartet obviously chose this as a calling card to show their familiarity with the core string quartet repertoire. The second work on the program showed their skill in a very different quartet. Kristian Winther introduced the String Quartet in no 1 in D minor Op 7 of Arnold Schoenberg by commenting that well over a century since his music first became known, it has always had the reputation of being difficult to play and even more difficult to hear and enjoy.
This work, of 1906, predates the more intimidating Schoenberg of the twelve-tone scale, but still makes great demands on performers and audience alike. A little over forty-five minutes in one continuous movement, it's a fascinating and frustrating work to hear for the first time. Every few bars there's a change of metre, a change of character, so many brief passages that appear to quote earlier composers and, indeed, subsequent composers, it's as if Schoenberg was exorcising the entire string quartet canon before clearing his head to create his own sound. Despite the length, the rapid changes of mood, texture, and timbre carried the audience along.
It's said that Haydn taught Mozart how to write string quartets and Mozart showed Haydn how string quartets should be written. Schoenberg famously commented that he learned everything from Mozart about string quartet composition. What he did with that information was to throw aside the structural patterns and rhetorical devices that had characterised the form from the beginning and build it anew.
Kristian Winther remarked that it was like Jurassic Park but directed by David Lynch, a reference that went over many heads. Certainly, the organic nature of the musical narrative was subjected to sometimes violent, sometimes mysterious, inexplicable developments. One fascinating feature was the significant role played by the harmonics, delivered by four string instruments, not subjected to the strictures of a well-tempered tuning system. Whatever the composer's demands on the listeners, the four conquered Schoenberg's demands on them. Bravo, is all I can say. I can say a lot more but I recommend listening to a performance of this work on Youtube. There's one with the scrolling score.
A string quartet has been likened to a four-way marriage, and the blend of four separate personalities can be magical. There are great European quartets who have maintained the original personnel for decades. The Adelaide-based Australian String Quartet has had many identities under its banner. How long the Alma Moodie quartet will play on, I'll wait to see, but such a sterling debut should lead to a long and creative existence.
The naming of quartets is an art in itself. The Amadeus, obviously Mozart inspired, the Alban Berg, after the composer, the Emerson, for Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Tankstream, after a Sydney watercourse. It's more than just a label, it really does carry an emotional quotient, as part of the total identity of the experience of their playing.
That Alma Moodie, a significant Australian violinist of the 1930s and 40s, has had her name bestowed on these four, should bring her career back to mind. A mate of mine commented that the name suggested a jazz ensemble led by the indomitable pianist and vocalist Alma Moodie, Al the Cat, to her friends. I'm hoping one day for the Hendrickson Quartet named for the wonderful Lyndall whose international violinist career was cut short by polio. Born in Balaklava, she lived to be one hundred years old. She was a totally splendid woman who should be celebrated.
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