Kings Place is a venue that can toy equally interestingly with musical conventions as well as with the spectators' nerves. An annoying series of technical inaccuracies made this fifth event within the Beethoven Unwrapped film series a difficult one to enjoy. This was true despite the unquestionable worthiness of such a project and the high quality and pertinence of the performances selected.
The string quartets screenings are part of a larger project that, in Kings Place developer Peter Millican's words, 'forms the backbone of [the] opening season'. Millican is referring precisely to Beethoven Unwrapped, a year-long series of events inspired by the composer's works.
The programme features celebrated performers (Jean-Bernard Pommier, the Orion String Quartet and Ann Murray among others), high-level study days hosting field experts and led by Professor Barry Cooper (one of the world's authorities on the composer); and a selection of films of the most influential Beethoven interpreters, in collaboration with the Louvre Film Festival. In other words, this project is an example of how to combine a selection of exemplary interpretations (that affected or will affect generations of performers) together with critical sensibility and awareness of historical research (revealed in the choice of the events).
Considering the complexity of such a project, it is clear that different levels of experience are at stake, even when extrapolating a single event – such as the string quartets screening. One level to be considered is the whole project's conception. As noted above, Beethoven Unwrapped is important in its critical outcomes and in the possibilities of comparing interpretations or becoming familiar with the numerous composers' works. Further levels of experience have to do with the specificities of the event. In this case, it's an experience dealing with an accepted and established heritage of string quartet performers: deciding to attend this specific event, members of the audience knew that they were dealing with a fine tradition of Beethoven interpreters. Finally, an additional level concerns the technical facilities that make such an event possible.
In order for a performance to be enjoyable, these levels shouldn't be 'visible': those who attend each of the events should be able to enjoy each of them in a global sense. Unfortunately, the 27 January quartets screening was so technically flawed that it's hard to talk of its experience as a whole: while the programme was most interesting and exceptionally performed (albeit in pre-selected performances), the whole experience was inevitably affected by the technical side of it.
The screening started thirty minutes late. The first piece to be heard was a sonata for cello and piano. We were offered a few minutes of this, until someone from the audience decided to advise the video technicians that, however loudly a cello can play, a string quartet is supposed to require four strings. After a couple of minutes of embarrassing darkness, we were finally offered the first video in programme: the only extant footage of the Hungarian Quartet, the musical ensemble founded in Budapest in 1935 that acquired worldwide fame for its interpretations of Beethoven and Bartók. This rare screening showed a performance of Op. 132 including the legendary Zóltan Székely as first violin. This visual reference – intensely and severely shot, as the playing itself – is a unique additional support for Beethoven listeners and performers.
A 1970 performance of Op. 18, No. 6 by the Amadeus Quartet was the following piece. As Joseph Kerman reports, Beethoven marked the last movement with the following note: 'Questo pezzo si deve trattare colla più gran delicatezza' ('This piece is to be played with the greatest delicacy'). Moments of intense sadness are offered in the fourth movement, in contrast to the virtuosity of the third. In fact, the last movement is the one that gives this quartet its name – Malinconia. This a profoundly oxymoronic quartet, and therefore highly suited to the Amadeus quartet: the musicians showed themselves most at ease when playing extreme dynamics, giving life to syncopated rhythms and animated expressiveness. Their passionate interpretation and reciprocal understanding were moving. Norbert Brainin was an excellent leader; Siegmund Nissel (violin), Peter Schidlof (viola) and Martin Lovett (cello) were equally outstanding.
As the final piece, the last concert of the Alban Berg Quartet was showed. The Vienna-based quartet, whose members decided to disband in 2008, offered an exceptional rendition of Op. 59, No.1, lead by first violin Günter Pichler. Unfortunately, this video was the most affected by technical faults: someone decided to play the recording from halfway through the first movement and to cut the ending without even allowing the last note to resound, leaving the hall in a brutally silent darkness.
Technical flaws apart, this diachronic comparison between the three all-male ensembles opens up a deeper, multidimensional perspective onto the history of Beethoven interpretation, as does the Beethoven Unwrapped project as a whole. Certainly a unique and solid project, it furthers a well-rounded perception of the composer's work and illuminates the way in which we and previous generations have experienced his music. Precisely for these reasons, any discussion of these events should be a reflection on their place within the continuing history of Beethoven performance and reception – not meta-considerations on a confusing event, desperately lost between critical excellence and technical negligence.
Photo: The Alban Berg Quartet
Related articles:
Beethoven String Quartets Op.18 No.4 & Op.59 No.2 Artemis Quartet on Virgin
Mutter, Bashmet & Harrell play Beethoven String Trios in Baden-Baden
Dominic Muldowney: Songs of the Zeitgeist at Kings Place
Experimental vocal music from the Sub Rosa label
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