Playing anything after a long period of absence is difficult, but it’s my opinion that chamber music – especially the string quartet – is the most difficult to come back to and do well. There are just so many variables among the four instruments, as well as the sheer breadth and difficulty of the repertoire, that lead to this conclusion. It was on my mind several times during my performance with the Arnica Quartet up at OHSU Auditorium at noon today, as we played Beethoven’s Op. 95 string quartet “Serioso”, and Schumann’s Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 with pianist Susan Dewitt Smith.
The Beethoven presents several difficulties. First of all, it’s by Beethoven, so he doesn’t do you any favors right off the bat. His writing is always uncompromising from a technical standpoint, even from the early Op. 18 quartets. Also, this particular quartet is written in such a spare and austere fashion, both in terms of its musical language and in its orchestration. It is a particularly transparent orchestration, which basically means that each instrument is very exposed (even more than usual in a string quartet setting) and voicing must be handled carefully to make sure that the material is presented in a clearly understandable way. Beethoven is equally sparing with his economy of materials in this quartet, too. Harmonic transitions occur quickly, and with little preparation. There is much more of a reliance on motivic development than on spinning melodies, which also contributes to the concentration of the materials. So too, the mood is terse (hence ‘Serioso’, a nickname bestowed upon the quartet by Beethoven himself), often angry, and the most striking moment of the piece, for me, is in the Allegretto movement (the closest that comes to a ‘slow’ movement in the quartet), where he starts a plaintive fugue which builds in intensity until it fragments and breaks apart, leaving only the spooky downward scale of the cello topped by suspensions in the upper strings, played sotto voce. It definitely looks forward to some incredible moments in the late quartets, and yet it all happens in the space of about 30 seconds. All of this aside, I think we did pull off a good performance of the quartet, which definitely felt good – even tough it was a tough horse to climb back on after a long absence. And the moment was doubly sweet since it marked the official return of our cellist Heather Blackburn, who had been out all of last year with a playing-related injury.
The Schumann Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 is just a joy to rehearse and perform. It is so well written for the forces that it really does go together quite easily, and having such a great pianist such as Susan to play it with certainly made it all the better. Everyone gets their moment in the lime light with this piece, and the piano is involved in just about every moment of the piece. I certainly hope that we get a chance to perform this piece again soon!
For any of you that haven’t been to the auditorium up at Oregon Health Sciences University for a concert, you’re missing one of the gems of performance spaces in Portland. I wish that it was located downtown so that parking and accessibility would be much easier, but it’s entirely worth the fuss to get up Pill Hill. It’s the perfect combination of lively and dry, with every voice being able to be heard with great clarity – a perfect chamber music setting.