Two quartets make an octet and two octets make an evening. The Quatour Ébène, with Jonathan Schwarz from the Leonkoro Quartet substituting for the indisposed Pierre Colombet, and the Belcea Quartet were on superlative form for the two string octets by Mendelssohn and Enescu.
Mendelssohn’s work might well have inspired every succeeding generation to match his inventiveness and ingenuity; before him only Spohr had attempted something similar. But whereas Spohr used his quartets antiphonally, Mendelssohn’s instruction to the players on the published score was to play in “symphonic orchestral style”. From the pen of a 16-year-old this was sheer genius. And yet, perhaps because the challenge of recreating this mixture of fire and air was so extraordinarily demanding, there have been few such instances.
These eight players led by the charismatic Corina Belcea seemed less interested in fairyland Mendelssohn than in uncovering darker Romantic undertones. The organ-like sonorities they produced in the opening movement compelled attention, with sinister interjections from the violas and an exploration of hidden corners along the direction of travel. It was weighty and emphatic, heavy even in parts, arguably doing justice to the basic marking of Allegro moderato, but with more of a con amore than con fuoco. In the following Andante the darker colours introduced a stronger awareness of Romantic melancholia, moments of solitude emerging more strongly than much tenderness.
Fanny Mendelssohn described the Scherzo thus: “One feels very near to the world of spirits.” This goblin-like music, sparkling, trilling and swirling right to the end, should create in the listener a sense of being airborne. It didn’t quite do that here: it was light and skipping, but with the eyes focusing on the footwork rather than turning heavenward. The concluding Presto had quite the most ferocious attack from the two cellos at the start that I have ever heard. I marvelled again and again at the weight, accuracy and rhythmic propulsion, delivered with proto-Beethovenian force, but despite all the virtuosic playing wasn’t it also just a little heartless? Mendelssohn’s Octet should raise your spirits by sweeping you away on wings of exuberant song. I was impressed, yes, but entranced?
Enescu’s Octet was much more suited to the exceptional ebullience and flexibility of these players. Pablo Casals was in no doubt about this composer’s credentials, declaring him to be “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart”. Completed in 1900, though having to wait nine years for its premiere, it is unquestionably a modernist work, forward-looking in its layered polyphony and the sheer density of the writing, but also pulling together all the competing musical influences of its time. In the opening Très modéré movement I was immediately struck by the Romanian folk melodies which emerged: this was clearly Balkan territory. Then there were tantalising pre-echoes of Ravel’s String Quartet in F major, written three years after Enescu’s Octet, with diaphanous touches that seemed to come straight from Debussy. Here was all the feathery lightness that I had missed earlier in the Mendelssohn, with the gentlest of pizzicatos and delicate wisps of melody rising to ethereal regions before the movement drew to its atmospheric close.
Yet this work offers not only remarkable tenderness, it bristles with volcanic turbulence. From its first bars, characterised by animal-like savagery, the impetuosity of the second movement, marked Très fougueux, held me in thrall. It was like listening to an Expressionist drama, in which all eight players were at war with each other. The final movement conjured up astonishing waves of sound, passion pouring forth from every pore, bows deployed with manic power, moments of sheer ecstasy. A quite thrilling conclusion.
