Above: Doric String Quartet members Emma Wernig (viola) and John Myerscough (cello). Featured image: Doric String Quartet have been performing around Australia with clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff. Photo from the current Musica Viva tour by Alex Jamieson.
Musicia Viva Australia’s current national tour brings together two charismatic musical forces with a significant history of performance with the organisation. Doric String Quartet from the UK returns to Australia for its fourth tour. Joining the quartet at the centre of the programme is clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff, whose association with Musica Viva has included participation in the Musica Viva Futuremakers initiative with the ensemble Arcadia Winds.
The concert in Sydney was just over half way through a successful tour with a compelling and rewarding programme. An early work for string quartet by Benjamin Britten was followed by a recent clarinet quintet from 2021 for bassett clarinet with the strings from British composer Thomas Adès. Following interval a favourite of the string quartet canon, Beethoven’s first ‘Razumovsky’ quartet in F major from 1806 rounds out the concert of exciting, atmospheric and lesser known works with a favourite work known to many.
The inclusion of this middle-period Beethoven work is important as the visiting quartet is near to finishing a recording cycle of the complete Beethoven string quartets in time for the bicentenary of Beethoven’s death in 2027. This colourful performance of the loved quartet was bristling with the scintillating synergy , energy and attention to inner detail that makes Doric’s interpretations so great.
In both complex conversation or counterpoint and joint utterances, this quartet excels in sympathetic accompaniment, the revealing of inner voice gems and produces a sound that makes us feel a much larger ensemble is on the stage. From the sensitive and controlled exploration of first movement form through to the playful second movement scherzando and a stunning, virtuosic finale celebrating Beethoven’s treatment of the Russian Theme in movement four, this is quite a ride for any four string players. Doric Quartet revel in all the challenges Beethoven throws to performers with this progressive work. This quartet gives Beethoven’s unique voice and approach to the four movement quartet model a wonderful airing and reminder for us.
Beethoven’s emotional slow third movement in particular was a beautiful, sustained moment. It was full of candid expression, colour and restraint as Doric Quartet cut through the subdued elegy in neat arcs. The interpretation and delivery of this movement by the guests both promoted their combined technique and a developed, globally desired approach to quartet playing across older music to the very new.
And a fine introduction to recent music we received here! Doric Quartet’s collaboration with Lloyd Van’t Hoff and the programming of Thomas Adès’ evocative genre-defying soundscape in his quintet for strings and basset clarinet was a mesmerising moment at the warm heart of this quality concert.
Above: Lloyd Van’t Hoff performs with Doric String Quartet. Photo from the current Musica Viva tour by Alex Jamieson.
Adès’ Alchymia, composed just five years ago, exploits the inimitable warmth of the basset clarinet. This clever composition, reaching backwards to Tudor and Elizabethan times and forwards to the grisly operatic world of Alban Berg, creates an impressive string of atmospheres for the performers and audience to lose themselves in.
Doric Quartet had already wowed us with a fresh reading of early Benjamin Britten’s Three Divertimenti for String Quartet. Their lithe and accessible gesturing of the finely wrought and interlocked fragments ensured they sounded novel and individual ninety years after composition. This opening to the concert endeared us to the bold British tradition and some imaginative and economical intrumental writing with considerable impact plus effect. The characterisation from these charismatic quartet players was en pointe as this Britten marched, waltz and shimmied its way into our hearts.
Moving on in the programme and eighty-five years through time to Alchymia and the intricate layering of Doric Quartet’s sympathetic accompaniment of the basset clarinet line was outstanding in its balance plus balance with the clarinet, with an exquisite rendering of Adès’ sonic tapestry.
Lloyd Van’t Hoff’s restrained playing, long phrases and nicely shaped high register trapeze-like lines hovered beautifully over such an accompaniment. When we eventually heard the low basset register, some two movement’s in, we have heard considerable examples of its clear but weightier upper register. A shift in character to the organ grinder imitation in the fourth movement was handled with great contrast to colour.
This works’ third movement – Lachrymae – was written and performed so convincingly in its chordal depths and smoothness that the basset clarinet quintet seemed to be an ensemble with a very long history. The significant contrasts between the substantial sonic vistas of each movement in this work mirrored the success of fashioning new packages for each movement in any work that Doric String Quartet peresented in this stunning concert – including their latest focus from the past- the also inimitable expressive contrasts of Beethoven’s string quartet language.
The championing of British works in this treat of a concert from Musica Viva was also a formidable and new offering for us to enjoy. As well as Britten and Adès we went home with a loved Beethoven favourite in the mix. Clever compositions, great choice of collaborators and careful programming made this concert and will make Musica Viva a relevant and fine force in our local chamber music environment- one that is continually a highlight of our concert calendar.
Excellent review, Paul.