Leonkoro Quartet

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh - 18/10/24

 Jonathan Schwartz violin, Amelie Wallner violin, Mayu Kono viola, Lukas Schwartz cello

 The New Town chamber concert series excelled once again with an absorbing evening’s music making from the Leonkoro Quartet, founded by the Schwartz brothers in Berlin back in 2019. Since then, these fine, imaginative musicians have garnered an international reputation and won a shelf-load of awards. On tonight’s performance it is not difficult to figure out why.

 We began with Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in F major, Op. 50, No. 5. Cast in customary four movement form, its popular title, ‘The Dream’, derives from the adagio which follows an elegantly stated opening theme, with delicate melodic phrases passed from one instrument to another. The slow movement is beautifully flowing and almost suspenseful in its atmosphere. The playing captured this perfectly.

 A lively minuet frames the third movement, punctuated by a series of playful almost-endings that finally land when you are not quite expecting it. Haydn has plenty of charm, but also a gentle sense of humour. The finale revisits earlier thematic material and alternates between the contrasting moods of the preceding movements. This was a delightful, palette cleansing musical preface to what was to follow, but with its own character and nuance.

 Next up was Alban Berg’s ‘Lyric Suite’, composed between 1925 and 1926. This is a work of almost shattering emotional and psychological intensity in six movements, and surely one of the great chamber works of the twentieth century. In an era where concert promoters still shy away from ‘modern’ works (in this case, one written almost a century ago!), the New Town Concerts Society are to be congratulated for combining the traditional with what is still regarded as challenging by many audiences.

 The point of this particular programme, in that regard, is that by sandwiching Berg between the classical Haydn and the romantic Mendelssohn, we are helped to see that the Viennese modernist master retained a strong lyrical and melodic sense in and through his adoption of serial techniques. The ‘Lyric Suite’ is pretty much atonal (the outer movements) and polytonal (the inner ones) all at once. It reflects a good deal of personal turmoil, with quickening and slowing tempos, complex and shifting interplay between the instruments – beautifully captured by the Leonkoro – and many subtle transitions and contrasts.

 The slower portions of the work, which retains a compelling wholeness across its varied movements, verge from the mysterious and hypnotic to the stretching and sinister. Playing this piece is not just a technical somersault course, but a narrative one, too. How to do justice to the minute particulars while maintaining the evolving, larger picture? In this performance, the quartet blended the particular and the universal in Berg’s masterpiece with real feeling and fluidity, but also (as required) jolting power. I cannot wait to hear this account of a hugely important work again, from a different perspective, when it is eventually broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

 After the interval, the mood changed once more. Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2, shows the composer at the height of his musical maturity and expressive power. But it, too, has its notable technical challenges. The strength of playing from the Leonkoro Quartet lies in their ability to handle such hurdles well, while not losing sight of what is being said in and through the music.

 The first movement connects with the opening of the later, and perhaps more famous, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, which is in the same key. The lower strings provide the rhythmic and tonal base for some delightful but also emotionally seasoned melodic playing on top. The scherzo that follows also incorporates a shimmering nocturnal magic (as David Lee put it in his well-crafted programme notes) within its dancing momentum.

 This shimmering quality echoes back to the Berg in a surprising way: the forcefulness of a quietude that sneaks up on you. Then there is Mendelssohn’s lively finale which – risky comparison here – almost sounds Nymanesque in places, though it is of course the former who is inspiring the latter. However, the exhilaration in the conclusion of this E minor quartet is matched and tempered by poise and beauty, right up to the final notes.

 An appreciative audience at the Queen’s Hall then brought the Leonkoro back for a finely wrought encore of the eight-minute andante mesto from Puccini’s ‘Crisantemi’. It provided a thoughtful and musically impassioned ending to a powerful, well-balanced performance.

 The series now continues in February 2025, with the Van Kuijik Quartet and guitarist Sean Shibe. This will match the Mendelssohn E Flat major String Quartet with guitar music from Boccherini, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and an always fascinating Thomas Adès. Not to be missed.