Pavel Haas Quartet – Schubert/Ravel

Posted by Jamie Munn on Thursday 11 November 2010

The Pavel Haas Quartet was introduced grandly as “the most exciting young string quartet of our time”, so they have a lot of expectations to meet. The Czech quartet is Glasgow Concert Halls’ first Artist in Residence, and as such will play in Glasgow two or three times per season, and lead workshops, talks and (enigmatically) ‘other musical adventures’. Whilst it is a bit of a coup for Glasgow, the quartet is certainly no strangers to Scottish audiences and has split concert-goers’ opinion on their playing.

For conservative music lovers (or pedants), the Pavel Haas are, perhaps, the representation in form of all they hate in classical interpretation. There is certainly no ‘niceness’, or quiet, laid-back refinement here. Their playing takes no strangers; it is exciting, showy and maintains a vital intensity throughout. This is real performance.

From the outset of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden the audience were rapt – the four players emote with such fluidity, moving and shaping the music seamlessly as a single unit. They are not afraid to explore the extremes of dynamic expression, from almost inaudible, vibrato-less whispers, to full-bodied symphonic sound that raises the eyebrows with their grittiness. The melancholy-riddled passion with which they played, is enhanced by the fact that Schubert composed the work just after discovering that he himself was dying.

The Ravel, surely one of the twentieth century’s great chamber compositions, was a showcase for their technical as well as musical virtuosity. Whilst there were fleeting moments where the tuning wasn’t quite right, or the intensity of played verged on the extreme side of exciting, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The last thing anyone could feel afterwards was tedious indifference – often the case with ‘nice’ readings of chamber music. Who, after all, wants to hear the same old interpretations, copied from immortalised recordings? Times and musical tastes evolve and change. It was, after all, not so long ago that a 300 strong choir and a symphony orchestra were the de facto resources for a Messiah or St Matthew Passion, coupled with a gravitas of tempi and emotional intensity that would see a sprightly Handel chorus give Tristan und Isolde a run for its money.

As with a number of other events in the City Halls recently, a constant, high-frequency buzzing somewhat detracted from the performance, but at least an announcement was made at the interval for rogue hearing aids to be tuned correctly.

The hall was fairly busy considering the competition on offer that evening, but not full enough for what was a fairly high profile launch for Glasgow Concert Halls. Svend Brown, artistic director, made an impassioned plea before the concert for people to spread the word about the concerts – he wants them sold out by the time the quartet’s tenure reaches its culmination with a festival in three years. So, concert-goers of Glasgow, make your way to the next Pavel Haas concert in March – at the very least, you can be assured that there is not a chance of your mind wandering or your eyes glazing over with boredom – the Pavel Hass simply wont allow it.

JM

Tags: City Centre, Classical