Lammermuir Festival: Coffee Concert II: Quatuor Agate

Holy Trinity Church, Haddington - 08/09/23 

Returning to the Lammermuir Festival this year to deliver the balance of programmes postponed from 2020, the young Frenchmen of Quatuor Agate, formed in 2016 when all were studying in Berlin, occupied the Coffee Concert slot in Haddington’s bright and pleasant Holy Trinity Church on Friday 8th September.  Their programme consisted of two works: Bartók’s ultimately melancholy Sixth Quartet and Dvořák’s sunny Op. 106 in G major. 

The last of Bartók’s quartets was the last thing he composed in his native Hungary, before leaving for the United States, dismayed at the rise of fascism (to which he had been a vocal opponent), grieving at the loss of his mother, and in failing health himself.  It is a 4-movement work, in which all movements start sorrowfully, the first three find distractions in the form of Hungarian song and dance to lift the low mood, but the last succumbs to despair. The quartet presented this journey through a troubled psyche with great interpretative skill, building and sustaining tension where needed, exploiting the warm acoustic of the venue to achieve controlled but dramatic dynamic contrasts, balancing clarity of individual lines with rhythmic unanimity in the rich ensemble sound, and keeping a sense of pace so that discords might stun the listener but never halted the progress of the musical argument.  This was particularly true of the essentially sonata-form first movement, following a desolate viola soliloquy.  The spooky ‘night music’ opening of the second movement leads to a strutting March, characterfully played with exaggerated martial mannerisms and more than a hint of blues slides, recalling the Blues movement in Ravel’s Violin Sonata.  The Burlesque which follows, camp and louche, was equally characterful, almost self-mocking, and quite superbly realised.  These ‘deceptions’ serve to set off the almost brutal candour of the finale, where the composer finally faces his grief head-on.  The players grabbed and held our attention for this moving exploration of the complex emotions of the elective exile, who knows he will never see his homeland again.  At the very end, there is a pianissimo hint on the cello of a major key resolution – a glimmer of hope, real or imaginary?  This was a very fine interpretation of a 20th-century masterwork. 

Dvořák’s Op. 106 is almost the exact opposite: the homesick exile, after a 3-year academic post in New York, returning to his Czech homeland at the height of his creative powers.  These included an unsurpassed gift for engaging melody and heart-warming harmony.  Everything he wrote was met by popular acclaim (this could not be said of Brahms, for example, whose music had a very mixed reception in America).  With the G major quartet, both these elements are radiant and reward sensitive playing. The ensemble sound was glorious throughout, as were the dynamics and phrasing.  I’d never noticed before that there is no exposition repeat in the first movement – it doesn’t seem to need one.  The viola gets to introduce the second theme in the recapitulation and his tone was exquisite.  The slow movement, one of Dvořák’s loveliest in 3/8 and E-flat major, is barcarolle-like and was delivered with warmth and delicious chording.  The unconventional Scherzo in B-minor, bouncy and rhythmic with rondo episodes rather than a Trio, features one gorgeous major key episode with lyrical birdsong emulation in the first violin, lovingly played, and another in the character of a Slavonic dance, delivered characterfully.  After a brief slow introduction, the home key Finale is vigorous and life-affirming (though there are moments of harmonic ambiguity).  Both main themes of the first movement are quoted before some harmonic wizardry launches the final dash.  A terrific performance of top-drawer Dvořák.