Polish tales lovingly told: the Silesian String Quartet at Wigmore Hall

The art of storytelling in chamber music is an honourable pursuit, as was elegantly demonstrated by the Silesian String Quartet’s performances of music by three of their compatriots at Wigmore Hall. With well-earned credentials as persuasive advocates on recordings and in live performances, the group’s familiarity with the very different aesthetics of each piece showed them to be a serious-minded ensemble.

There is much to admire in Stanisław Moniuszko’s Quartet no. 1 in D minor, a student work dating from 1839: charming themes; lightly-sprung rhythms; soft-focus harmonies. These were eloquently woven by the Silesians into the tale of a night of genteel revelry at the squire’s place. The repartee between neighbours and friends bubbled along nicely, softly-lit by warm candlelight. A favourite waltz, long-shorn of its rustic origins, delights the company; an old ballad is revived by a tenor with impeccable manners; and the evening ends with a country dance once owned by the wood and leather of clogs but now the property of satin slippers. Moniuszko wrote one more quartet before deciding to give his all to the operas for which he is now chiefly remembered.

Mieczysław Weinberg might easily be called a survivor from Warsaw (and from Belorussia) in his dash for safety from the Nazis. He was also a survivor of the doctrinaire underbelly of Bolshevism and the murderous cult of Stalinism. In the 1980s, in Moscow, amid the death-throes of the Soviet Union, Weinberg was still strong enough to complete his Quartet no. 17 – taking two steps further than Shostakovich, his revered friend, mentor and protector. The tale engagingly narrated by the Silesians is of a work that shows the composer very much his own man, wearing very lightly the “anxiety of influence” that must have been present in the aura surrounding his senior colleague.

Propelled by a sprightly opening theme, joyfully played, the three sections of the piece were given an expansive reading by the Silesians. Their playing was full of character, with a robust sound coloured by the modal inflections typical of Weinberg’s harmonic language. The return of the opening theme to round off the work is integral to the trajectory of the musical argument and proved to be the re-emergence of sunshine out of the gloom-filled central passages.

Górecki’s String Quartet no. 3 “…songs are sung”, is a strange work about which the composer appeared to have his doubts as to whether it should be let loose on the world. He kept it under wraps for ten years after it had been written. Its story, as told by the Silesians, is that of a composer and his material locked in a mock arm-wrestling contest. Each knows it cannot win since they are equally-matched for strength, stamina, and the “true grit” tenacity of John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn. But this is no gung-ho Western, despite the reported presence of horses in the poem – by Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov – which supplied the heavy-laden subtitle. The images projected by the Silesians’ deft touches and rich sounds recalled those of a Tarkovsky narrative, by turns enigmatic, introspective and, finally, inscrutable except to those with a keen sense of wonder. The songs sung were, on this occasion, not of the sorrowful type.

The tales told by the Silesian String Quartet, though lovingly done with exquisite playing, were narrated to a sparsely populated auditorium. Devoid of the warmth that a good crowd generates, the temperature of the performances was not as cosy as it might have been.