I perioder lød Fauré Quartett for beregnende, men de bød også på ægte følelser.

Af Andrew Mellor

Fauré-kvartettens cellist Konstantin Heidrich indledte koncerten med at takke ensemblets venner Jens Elvekjær og Trio Con Brio for invitationen til at optræde i København. Med en aktiv musiker med netværket i orden, som det er tilfældet i denne forening med Elvekjær som formand, kan Hellerup Kammermusikforening tiltrække nogle imponerende kunstnere. Næste sæson byder på et besøg af verdens måske fineste strygekvartet Pavel Haas Quartet.

Det er ikke kun udøvende musikere, der ønsker at komme til kammermusikforeningens koncerter. Det gælder også publikum – ti minutter før start var der ikke et eneste ledigt sæde i Helleruplund Kirke. Måske vidste de gode borgere i Hellerup på forhånd, at Fauré Quartett, der ikke er en strygekvartet men en klaverkvartet, er på toppen i disse dage. Måske vidste de også, at et ensemble der kalder sig ‘Fauré Quartett’ sandsynligvis vil være temmelig gode til at opføre Gabriel Faurés klaverkvartet.

At opleve kvartetten spille stykket, som de er opkaldt efter, var sigende. Dette ensemble spiller kammermusik lige så meget med øjne og ører som med fingrene. Musikkerne var hele tiden klar til at skifte temperament i Faurés små motiver, når de bevægede sig fra det ene instrument til det næste. Der er altid en risiko for, at det musikalske resultat kan føles for beregnede eller endda overdrevent let, når et ensemble kender et værk indgående. Det fornemmede jeg i nogle af passagerne. Andre steder udtrykte musikerne et enormt spektre af farver og volumen, og der var en oplevelse af, at de følelser de udforskede var ægte.

Teknisk set er et ensemble, der spiller så præcist og intuitivt sammen, en fornøjelse at se på. Åbningen af Fauré-stykket byder på vanskelige og tydelige pizzicato-knips, som både lød perfekte og intuitivt. I den anden sats, der lyder som små egern, der løber fra træ til træ, var kvartettens samspil nøjagtig og spændende. Adagio-satsen indledes tøvende og bevæger sig frem mod et frit, lyrisk tema, der spilles af førsteviolinen; Erika Geldsetzers håndtering af stemningsskiftene i violinens melodi var tydelige og stemningsfulde. Musikerne var endnu mere på stikkerne, når det gjaldt de tematiske relationer og refleksioner i den lidt oppustede finale.

Udover Fauré bød programmet på to andre værker, der er tæt forbundne med dette tyske ensemble. Begge stykker er skrevet til dem. Først hørte vi Toshio Hosokawas post-minimalistiske reaktion på Fukushima-katastrofen i 2011: ‘The Water of Lethe’, der også er et værk, som er baseret på stemningsskift, der veksler mellem instrumenterne, ligesom krusninger på overfladen af en dam.

Til sidst hørte vi Mussorgsky berømte ‘Udstillingsbilleder’ arrangeret for klaverkvartet af Fauré Quartett og Grigorji Gruzman. Der var mange stemningsfulde steder i arrangementet, mest i de åbenlyst karakterfulde og komiske satser. Fx i ‘Byldo’ der er en musikalsk skildring af en polsk oksekærre. Der var nogle farverige øjeblikke og stærkt spil ikke mindst af Dirk Mommertz på et glimrende Steinway. Men der var også perioder, hvor de musikalske kræfter mellem klaveret og de tre strygere føltes utilstrækkelig, som jeg dog vil bebrejde manglen på fantasi i de sidste sider i arrangementet, snarere end i selve udførelsen. Men Mussorgskys ‘Udstillingsbilleder’ er ofte et frustrerende stykke at opføre. Jeg fornemmer, ikke overraskende, at Faurés kvartet mere er i Fauré Quartetts boldgade.

Fauré Quartett
Helleruplund Kirke, 20.3.17

Foto: Mat Hennek

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[ENGLISH VERSION]

Like Squirrels Running Between Trees

In some passages the performance felt calculated, but The Fauré Quartett also explored the genuine human emotions.

By Andrew Mellor

The Fauré Quartett’s cellist Konstantin Heidrich opened this concert by thanking his ensemble’s ‘friends’ Jens Elvekjær and Trio Con Brio for the invitation to perform in Copenhagen. With an active, well-connected musician like Elvekjær at the helm, Hellerup Chamber Music Society is pulling in some impressive artists. Next season will include a visit from perhaps the world’s finest string quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet. Helleruplund Church has a good acoustic for chamber music and the Steinway piano used for this week’s concert sounded exquisite.

It is not just artists who want to come here. Audiences do too. A whole ten minutes before the concert began, there was not a single spare seat in the church’s nave. Perhaps the good folk of Hellerup knew before I did that the Fauré Quartett, not a string quartet but a piano quartet, is an ensemble at the top of its game. Perhaps they also sensed that an ensemble called the ‘Fauré Quartett’ is likely to be pretty good at paying Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet.

Listening to the ensemble play the piece it is named after was telling. This is a group that plays chamber music with eyes and ears as much as with fingers. The players were constantly alive to the shift in feeling in Fauré’s little motifs as those motifs move from player to player. The danger, with a piece the ensemble knows so well, is that the performance can feel calculated or even overly easy, like a demonstration. We felt that in some passages. Elsewhere there was a massive range in colour and volume from the players and a feeling that the emotions they were exploring were genuine human ones.

Technically, an ensemble that plays so tightly and intuitively together is a treat to behold. In the Fauré’s opening Allegro molto, the placing of the tricky, exposed pizzicatos sounded both perfect and wholly intuitive. In the second movement, which sounds like squirrels running between trees, the quartet’s pinball accuracy was thrilling. The Adagio emerges hesitantly towards the expression of a free, lyrical theme on the first violin; Erika Geldsetzer’s handling of the shift in mood with the violin tune was clear and evocative. The players were even more reactive to thematic relations and reflections in Fauré’s slightly frothy finale, which gave the piece’s ending a conclusive stamp.

Aside from the Fauré, we heard two other pieces that are close to this German ensemble. Both were written for it. Firstly, Toshio Hosokawa’s post-minimalist reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe ‘The Water of Lethe’, another work based on the concept of feelings passing from player to player, like ripples on the surface of a pond.

Finally we heard an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s famous ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ made by Grigorji Gruzman in collaboration with the quartet itself. There were plenty of evocative moments in the arrangement, mostly in the overtly characterful and comic movements like ‘Byldo’, a musical depiction of a Polish ox cart. There was some colourful and highly considered playing not least from Dirk Mommertz on that brilliantly voiced Steinway. But there were also moments in which the musical forces of piano and three strings felt inadequate, for which I’d blame a slight lack of imagination in the final pages of the arrangement, rather than in the performance itself. But then, Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures’ is so often a frustrating piece. I feel, unsurprisingly, that the Fauré Quartett is more the Fauré Quartet’s thing.

Fauré Quartett
Helleruplund Kirke, 20.3.17

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