James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
Brahms quartets book-ended the concert, his Quartet in C minor Op. 51 No. 1 opening the first half. A rhythmically compact and complex work, it utilises the composer’s dramatic vision to create both excitement and beauty. Although the first movement was probably the Kreutzer Quartet’s least successful part of the evening, their passion and vigorous dedication to the music was evident. When the final chord ended to rapturous applause, it may have seemed that they had peaked too early. This was, however, just the beginning.
Although written in a very different century, both musically and historically, from that of Brahms (albeit before the composer escaped the controlling Communist regime in his native Hungary), Ligeti’s Quartet no. 1 (Métamorphoses nocturnes) complimented the programme well. Despite its piercing dissonances and dense chromaticism, the piece’s rhythmic intensity and harmonic tension reflected the excitement of Brahms’ work, as did the folk music parodies. The Kreutzer’s performance was exemplary; even though the one-movement work had to be interrupted to change a snapped viola string, the audience’s exhilaration was indissoluble.
The second half began with Joachim’s ‘Andante Pastorale and other duos’, a violin duet. Whilst not as artistically merited as the other works in the programme, Peter Sheppard Skærved and Mihailo Trandafilovski used it to highlight the composer’s expert knowledge of the violin. Joachim is widely regarded as being one of the greatest violinists in history; in this piece his virtuosic ability enabled him to mimic a full string quartet with just two violins. Double-stopping – playing two pitches simultaneously – is notoriously difficult to tune, so two violinists using the technique together can often sound disastrous. The two Kreutzer violinists, however, managed it beautifully;,allowing the charm of the piece to hold the audience’s full attention.
Ending effectively where the concert began, Brahms’ Quartet in A minor Op. 51 No. 2 is a more lyrical and spacious counterpart to the first work in the programme. Operatic at times, gracefully subdued at others, the performers highlighted the animation, intensity and inspired instrumentation that gave this piece – and the concert as a whole – its epic awesomeness magnificently. This concert seemed to be the most positively appraised in the university series so far – with good reason: it was almost certainly the best.
You must log in to submit a comment.
