Above: (l-r) Vision String Quartet members: Florian Willeitner (violin), Daniel Stoll (violin), Leonard Disselhorst (cello) Sander Stuart (viola). Photo by Harald Hoffmann. Featured image -supplied.
Vision String Quartet, the popular and successful crossover string quartet-band from Berlin, has almost completed its 9-concert Musica Viva national tour including workshops.
This much-awarded string group from Berlin is now in its eleventh year together. Vision String Quartet have been amazing audiences with full concert programmes being performed from memory, no matter the length or complexity of the major quartet works included.
Their innovative approach to programming and concert performance has included use of lighting designs to further enhance the collective’s commanding delivery. Also notable and innovative has been their performance of Schubert’s ‘Death and The Maiden’ Quartet D810 in a completely dark concert hall.
This quartet has released both classical and crossover albums and singles on the Warner Classic label. Memento (2020) featured Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ leading into Mendelssohn’s F minor quartet, No 6.
The newest album, Spectrum, features highly accessible music written and conceived by the quartet-band. Tracks are in the crossover- folk and various other styles, employing stunning string effects and progressing use of the traditional quartet ensemble.
Above: The album cover for Vision String Quartet’s 2021 relase on Warner Classic, ‘Spectrum’.
The programme for this Musica Viva tour was a masterful blend of music by succesful expats the Swiss-born Ernest Bloch and superstar chamber music composer, the Czech-American, Antonin Dvořák.
Central to this programme was Béla Bartók ‘s String Quartet No 4 in C major, Sz. 91. It is always a welcome moment when this composer’s intricacies, energy and modern passion make their way to the concert stage.
This sprawling five-movement work with complex patterning and interplay of intricate fragments between players is a challenge for any quartet. This work, to be played from memory nine times throughout the current tour, was played with secure freshness and precision. It was a breathtaking statement from the group,
Vision Quartet captured all the challenging shifts in group nuance and dramatic, wide ranging contrast between instruments to be found within the vibrant microcosm of Bartok’s variegated architecture.
Above: Vision String Quartet’s first album release, ‘Memento’ appeared in 2020. It featured quartets by Schubert and Mendelssohn.
Leading the audience into interval, this highlight from a blockbuster programme was an entertaining choice, with its complete movements of pizzicato and muted string bravura an extra layer of ‘wow’ factor for the appreciative audience.
After interval there was no less than thirty seven minutes of late Dvořák in the form of his String Quartet No 13 in G major Op 106. Stepping back in time to the late nineteenth century, and also delivered from memory, this huge emotional kaleidoscope was communicated in one forthright voice, as strong statements and candid conversational moments by Vision Quartet.
The structure, with backwards-forwards referencing and developing of the work’s plethora of themes was energetically and respectfully outlined by this ensemble. This was a Dvořák masterwork for us to sink our music-hungry teeth into and to be amazed and the strength of its message unfolding before us.
The signature clarity and colourful openness of Vision String Quartet’s interpretative skill featured in this flagship work of the canon was touching to hear, witness. As with the Bartók, we took quite the journey with these talented boys from Berlin across the varied moods and textures of this work.
From the concert’s outset, we knew an emotional ride was in store. The small scale Prelude, B.63 by Ernest Bloch was trace in clear, very fine interlocking lines by the quartet. This miniature’s organic growth into busier, less lyrical material did not blur the communication, nor have us anywhere but on the edge of our seats.
Vision String Quartet treated us to its crossover excellence also, via an encore from their latest album Spectrum. This was the original track ‘Sailor’, using iconic techniques and a special feel between the players that will surely inspire many present to rush out to get access to the unique warth of sound and special music making.
We look forward to a return by this supergroup to our shores and thank Musica Viva for this chance to hear them live for the first time.