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Haydn, Wagner & Mendelssohn
Minguet Quartet at Conway Hall, London, 28 April 2013 A welcome return to London of the Minguet Quartet which, on this showing, is currently as fine a group as you'll hear anywhere. Their Haydn was high-powered and faultless in ensemble and tone colours; very much 21st C playing, such as likely could not have been envisaged by the composer. The Wagner (never intended for the public, published when the Wagners were "pressed for debt") is a rarity for quartet; the absence of winds for variety of tone colours emphasises its monothematicism, and it might become boring if attempted by a less refined group than the Minguets. Aroa Sorin is their new violist since they were last here and the ensemble is perfect; I noted especially the gorgeous tone of The late Mendelssohn pieces are concert rarities and ended a programme which attracted with its unusual repertoire and satisfied as did their last appearance. Members of the LPO who met the Minguets in Moscow recently had never heard of Conway Hall... I hope that the Minguets will remain loyal to Conway Hall's atmosphere and acoustic, arguably the best for chamber music in the Capital, still a well kept secret since 1878 ! Peter Grahame Woolf Haydn, Widmann, Mendelssohn and Bach A world class string quartet from Germany, with an impressive range of CDs to their credit, the Minguets gave an enthralling recital at Conway Hall, which (from the right seats) has arguably amongst the best acoustics for chamber music in the capital - heresy? Haydn's Op 20/5 was marvellously blended and balanced, with ravishing decoration of the melodies in the slow movement. It may seem unoriginal to start a quartet recital with a such a work, but the joy of it is that there are so many fine, different Haydn quartets one is unlikely to hear the same one too often, so each comes up fresh. There is a special relation between these players and Jörg Widmann, composer/clarinettist prominent in Germany, with whom they have recorded Rihm's clarinet quintet. Widmann's Hunt Quartet, written in 2003 when he was c.30, is in a single movement which requires dramatic gesture and uninhibited vocalisations from the players. The music is grounded in a relentlessly varied hunting tune, its pervasive rhythm based on one of the pieces in Schumann's Papillons. That piece is certainly one for young string quartets to explore, and I look forward to hearing others of Widmann's quartets. [See my review of his notably original cello concerto.] The Minguet Quartet's The Minguet's made this UK stop-over to add lustre to the London Chamber Music Series at Conway Hall after playing in Denmark the previous day, and before flying to Indonesia next morning. They told me they are next scheduled to appear in England 2009... Until then, there are many CDs to explore**; see their website. Peter Grahame Woolf * - - giving full power and vehemence to Felix Mendelssohn's angry memorial for his sister Fanny shortly before his own death. This Op 80 of 1847 famously won the Vellinger Quartet their victory in the London String Quartet Competition 1994, after which they led a performance of it in the Barbican Centre by all the participating quartets conducted by Sir Yehudi Menuhin; unforgettable! - - Fuchs String Quartets. Volume 2. No.4 in A, Op. 106 & No.3 in C, Op. 71;
Dabringhaus und Grimm [MDG 603 1002-2] The first of these discs joins two quartets from a near-forgotten composer, who was a friend of Brahms and did not seek to go beyond his idiom in later years. 'A survivor from a vanished world' (Calum MacDonald in IRR) he was replaced as a composition teacher by Schoenberg. Robert Fuchs' 4th Quartet (1916) is in the style he was brought up with, apparently blissfully unconcerned with the cataclysms of the changing musical world. The third is more expansive and reckoned the best of them, with some freedom within its classicism; introducing new themes unexpectedly during the four well contrasted movements. These quartets are refreshing to hear, always mellifluous and given here affectionately and with lovely tone and impeccable tuning. They'd go well at music clubs and, indeed, at the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts, whose audiences tend to be PGW 23/12/2006 Jan Röhrmann
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Annette Reisinger's viola, a special instrument?
compelling account of Mendelssohn's last quartet, composed in response to the death of his beloved sister Fanny, was unusual in tempering the prevailing vehemence and unrestrained anguish emphasised in many performances (e.g. The
conservative but were able to embrace Widmann's Hunt Quartet. 
Wolfgang Rihm's string quartets (at least a dozen of them) are harder nuts to crack, but hearing nos. 7, 8 & 9 left me intrigued and wanting to return to them.