Lammermuir Festival: Quatuor Mosaïques III

Dirleton Kirk - 12/09/22 

One of the pleasures of the Lammermuir Festival for me is to discover venues in hidden parts of my own county, East Lothian. This was different. To rediscover Dirleton Kirk, where my daughter gave a childhood performance some 20 years ago. An elegant 17th century building, it’s been modernised with clean stripped timbers, pale walls, the only bright colour is in the stained glass windows. The mood is fitting for Haydn’s clarity, perhaps less so for Schubert’s heartfelt explorations.  

Haydn: Quartet in D minor, Op 103 

This is the first live chamber music I have heard since lockdown. The bass notes have a sweetness that no reproduction could reproduce; the higher notes penetrate with a hint of sour. Haydn offers no single theme or tune, neither does he dazzle or make you weep, but he satisfies. Only two movements. The composer was old and too weak to complete the usual four, but with Haydn there is no melancholy, rather a celebration of a long productive life.  

Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D703 

Drama from the opening notes. And then a melody which repeats and changes shape throughout the piece. Both composers were facing death, but their approaches could hardly be more different. Here there is a sense of aspiring, always interrupted by something bleak. The programme quotes Schubert, “Whenever I attempted to sing of love it turned to pain”.  

Schubert: Quartet in G major, D887 

This is a vast piece written in the last years of Schubert’s short life. Though I’ve been a Schubert lover for many years, I’m still often surprised to find myself listening to a work that’s new to me. This was a case in point. 

I  

Marked Allegro but it seems almost frozen. In fact it’s Allegro molto moderato - moderato to the point of suspension. Rather than an architecture of four instruments, there is conflict throughout the movement: a dialogue, almost aggressive, of the violins with the deeper viola and cello. As the movement ends with a set of firm chords, we almost feel as if this could be the whole piece. 

II  

Now we get more communal playing, the instruments building together. With its unexpected shifts of rhythm and volume one might easily take it for something by a 20th century master. Then the ending comes with gentle soothing. 

III  

Here the music has a lightness and ease we’ve not heard before. Almost dansant.

IV  

Marked Allegro assai, it certainly opens that way. To my surprise the music is not just light, it really is happy. I have to control my feet tapping lest I annoy my neighbours. Darkness is swept away. Is this how music triumphs over death? 

Overall, Schubert demonstrates a mastery of complexity that would seem impossible for a man in the last stages of syphilis. As it happens, only last week on Radio 3 Donald MacLeod was raising doubts about that diagnosis.   

The players are deeply concentrated, relatively still, all in black. The audience is entranced. Mostly elderly as is usual at classical performances; many are frail, but there’s never a cough, scarcely a movement of the head. Everyone is absorbed in this masterly performance of three late masterpieces. 

Cover photo: Wolfgang Krautzer