Consone Quartet with Helen Charlston
Music at Paxton, Scottish Borders, 20/7/24
Consone Quartet , Agata Daraškaitė & Magdalena Loth-Hill, Violin
Elitsa Bogdanova, Viola, George Ross, Cello
With Helen Charlston, Mezzo-soprano
I’ve seen many excellent concerts at Paxton over the years, but this combination of mezzo soprano and period instrument quartet in arrangements of Romantic songs was one of the finest, a musical experience which made me listen to familiar music in an entirely new way. The Consone Quartet are in their second year as Music at Paxton’s Associate Ensemble, and my Edinburgh Music Review colleague Brian Bannatyne-Scott was very impressed last year with the distinctive sound of their period instruments with gut strings, and the lovely way they worked together.
Their first concert this year adds another element to their remarkable sound as Helen Charlston, mezzo-soprano, joins the group in arrangements of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann, and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. Helen introduces the group of six songs by Clara Schumann as “miniatures about dreams” and says that they all end with ”an extraordinary question-mark.” The quartet are arranged conventionally with first violin Agate Daraškaitė and second violin Magdalena Loth-Hill on the left of the stage and viola player Elitsa Bogdanova and cellist George Ross on the right. Helen Charlston stands in the middle of the group, between Magdalena and Elitsa, so that from the beginning, while her voice is clearly heard singing the lyrics, she becomes a fifth member of a quintet, joining in their collaborative music. The full-bodied effect of the gut-stringed instruments and the strong alto voice is an immediate delight and continues to give pleasure throughout. The brief songs of love and loss by Heine, Geibel and Rückert are straightforward, yet given added complexity by the underlying textures of the strings. The impression is of an even tone with the players playing different harmonies, giving a chorale-like effect. John Donne in his ‘Prayer’ hopes to find “one equal music” in heaven - something which I never thought sounded appealing. But this splendid arrangement tonight has something of a heavenly quality!
Meanwhile the Consone Quartet play Robert Schumann’s ‘String Quartet in F Opus 41 no 2.’ Magdalena Loth-Hill says that the Consone plan to play the three Schumann Opus 41 quartets over the three years of their residency. She highlighted the family and friends link in tonight’s programme, celebrating the husband and wife, Robert and Clara Schumann and their friends, brother and sister Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. After the relative stillness of the instrumentalists in the songs, they launch into the Allegro Vivace with energy, smiles and eye-contact, even mirroring each other’s swaying movements. The gut strings enhance the crunches of dissonance as well as the rich harmonics. In the theme and five variations which make up the second movement Andante, we hear the individual players take the lead in the different sections, with George Ross on cello playing witty pizzicato and at other times rapid falling scales.
In the audience is Bill Thorp, an experienced arranger in many kinds of music. We learn that as a friend of the quartet players and Helen Charlston, he sent them an arrangement of Robert Schumann’s ‘Frauenlieben und -leben’ when all of them were BBC New Generation Artists, and this led to a radio broadcast. This year he has also arranged the Clara Schumann songs, and three Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn songs which begin the second half. In all of them he uses the notes of the original piano accompaniment which he divides among the string players. The most famous of these songs is Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges’, known to many of the audience from school singing lessons as ‘On Wings of Song’. Thorp’s string arrangement of the lilting accompaniment works beautifully with Helen’s secure and joyous mezzo in another song about a lover’s dream.
Robert Schumann’s song cycle about ‘A Woman’s Love and Life’ was written in 1840, his ‘Year of Song’ which was also the year that he and Clara were finally allowed to marry. The 1831 text by German poet Alberto Chamisso had become popular among female readers, attracted by its depiction of a strong heroine, overcoming life’s vicissitudes. The arrangement, which follows the original setting in having the strings begin and end nearly every song, also allows lighter passages when the instruments work in pairs. Helen’s adoption of the persona of the narrator is completely compelling. The early disbelief and indecision, the raptures of marriage and motherhood are captured in the clear diction and unforced beauty of her voice, while the playing and singing of the last song about her husband’s sudden death brings the work to a moving conclusion.
The applause lasts for some time, and when the players return to the stage Helen asks Bill Thorp to stand for his much-deserved ovation and reveals that all but two bars in the song cycle were by Schumann – the ones that Bill wrote for ‘The Ring upon my Finger’ which she couldn’t sing without smiling. Bill’s arrangement of Fanny Mendelssohn’s setting of ‘Over the Mountains’ is the short and sweet encore.
You can hear a short excerpt from the Quartet and Helen’s rehearsal of the Robert Schumann at St John’s Smith Square last month on Helen Charlston’s Facebook Page, where she also hints at a possible recording of these Lieder arrangements.
