Austria Mozartwoche Salzburg 2024 [5] – Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Hagen Quartet (Lukas Hagen, Rainer Schmidt [violins], Veronika Hagen [viola], Clemens Hagen [cello]). Grosser Saal, Mozarteum, Salzburg, 30.1.2024. (MB)
Haydn – String Quartet in D minor, Op.76 No.2, Hob. III:76, ‘Fifths’
Mozart – String Quartet in D minor, KV 421/417b
Beethoven – String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op.131
Three string quartets in minor keys, two of them in the identical minor key, would possibly sound like an overload of distress, or no less than darkness, however issues have been extra blended on this Hagen Quartet Mozartwoche recital. It was not precisely filled with the thrill of spring, however then now we have some solution to go in our Winterreise earlier than we attain such joys. Extra to the purpose, we may get pleasure from a cornucopia of invention from three of the supreme masters of the style, Mozart rightly on the centre.
Haydn was, after all, as near the inventor of the string quartet as makes little matter, definitely its ‘father’ in a manner he was not, as as soon as was claimed, of the symphony. He was represented by his ‘Fifths’ Quartet, written no less than 5 years after Mozart’s demise, however his voice arguably appeared the oldest right here, not least with respect to a shocking strategy in direction of ‘early music’ sound at its opening. Regardless of the problems with ‘type’, motivic integrity and emotional depth are the essential issues for the primary motion; they have been definitely to be discovered right here. The event’s very specific course was vividly communicated, bringing us to a recapitulation of drama, each on the motivic and the broader harmonic ranges, halfway between the Excessive Baroque and Beethoven. Melodic grace and expressive depth characterised the second motion variations, main/minor oscillation key to their progress. Vigour and rigour have been insistently frequent to each minuet and trio, in addition to to the finale. We are inclined to affiliate the daemonic with Mozart and Beethoven on this key, however Haydn right here made his declare simply as sturdy, by way of materials and sheer originality in its working that may very well be solely his. This was a nice psychological work-out, transferring in equal measure: that’s, first-rate Haydn.
Mozart in D minor adopted: the second of his quartets devoted to Haydn. Not that it didn’t possess most of the qualities ascribed above to Haydn, however what struck me instantly was the larger, extra private pathos, inviting one in to a drama whose subjectivity recommended this would possibly truly be ‘Mozart’s’ drama too, albeit with a query mark equivalent to one would by no means sense, rightly or wrongly, with Beethoven. The Hagen Quartet made no apologies for the complexity of the primary motion, tremendously admired by Schoenberg, its improvement counterpoint Janus-faced in protomodernism and archaism — or so one may fancy. The flip to the minor for the recapitulation’s second group was echt-Mozart, after all, and so it sounded right here. The Andante first breathed a heat comfort that was but fragile, adopted by a vehemence generally tragic, generally merely stark: phrases have been thus set, to be correctly developed. There was no doubting the vehemence of the minuet both, nor the required distinction of recollections of Salzburg serenading in its trio. If the finale appeared to counsel Schubert, it usually does on the web page too. The idiocy one usually hears about Classical variation type one way or the other being lesser than that of the Baroque or Romanticism was as soon as once more so totally confounded as to have one marvel how anybody might need thought such a factor within the first place. Maybe the Hagens might need exercised a tighter grip at instances, however there was advantage in not urgent too onerous.
By the tip of that first half, my ears have been prepared for a brand new key. Beethoven supplied that – and never solely that – within the introduction and unfolding of his C-sharp minor Quartet. The ineffable disappointment of the first-movement fugue, so transferring and prophetic for Wagner, was expressed with out exaggeration, materials apparently talking ‘for itself’, albeit with a (comparatively) mild sforzando nudge for the ultimate observe of the topic throughout the exposition. The whole lot, it appeared, got here from its first assertion. As Webern as soon as put it, ‘To develop every little thing … from one principal thought! That’s the strongest unity… However in what type? That’s the place artwork is available in!’ Artwork definitely got here in right here, at its rarest and most elegant. For while that is undoubtedly holy floor, it was so not as a result of now we have designated as such, however by way of intense, sincere, in the end radiant expression: Beethoven’s, above all, but additionally absolutely that of the performers.
A quizzical second motion and good-natured third led us to twin complexity and ease within the central fourth. Depth and route have been prey to ‘late’ instability, but have been by no means fairly defeated, that instability remodeled right into a guideline for the scherzo whose manic rigour appeared to take us all the way in which to Bartók, even Schoenberg, and even perhaps past. It might, though one ‘knew’ in any other case, have appeared to be hurtling in direction of a conclusion, however serene intervention within the guise of the sixth motion and one thing approaching tragedy within the finale ensured there have been no straightforward solutions — and even questions. This remaining motion hallowed each ‘outdated’ and ‘new’, once more posing the query ‘easy methods to finish all of it?’ A sign energy of the Hagens’ efficiency was that, once more regardless of whether or not one ‘knew’, one felt that each one was within the steadiness till the very finish.
Mark Berry
