Arensky, Beethoven and Schubert

As a Festival Pass holder at this year's Music and Beyond in Ottawa, I have 15 concerts to report! It feels like a long time since the first one I attended at midday on July 5th, a concert of music by the Russian composer Arensky, who died in 1906. "Tragic death," I scribbled on the programme, but forgot why. (According to the Wikipedia Arensky died of TB at the age of 44, in Finland.)

Each of the two pieces was written in memory of another musician, the first, a quartet for violin, viola and (unusually) two cellos, in three movements (Op. 35, No.2), composed as a tribute to Tchaikovsky. The music being balanced towards a low pitch made it sound funereal in places, the first movement like a sacred chant. "Deep Russian sonority," I noted. The middle movement was a series of variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky, Russian folksy in style, and the Finale began in a low register again, on all four instruments, andante sostenuto, leading to a fugue.

The second piece, Arensky's first piano trio in four movements, Op. 32, written in memory of a cellist friend, was somewhat lighter by comparison, with a romantic, Dvorak-like opening movement with a fast, bouncy Scherzo and a muted Elegia following.

I jumped on a bus and went straight from that concert to the 2pm concert at Southminster United: the Auryn Quartet playing Beethoven and Schubert, not to be missed! They played Beethoven's C-sharp minor Opus 131, with no breaks between the movements. I'm not sure whether the Ottawa audience is quite ready for Beethoven's Late Quartets -- some of the audience seemed to find it a hard slog -- but knowing what to expect, I was swept along with this monumental music. After the intermission, the German group performed Schubert's G major quartet D. 887, and that was Beethovenesque too, with its sudden major-minor changes, and delighted me with a long and lovely melody on the cello in the slow movement. The Auryn Quartet is adept at pianissimo playing: that's what distinguishes the professionals from the amateurs. These men have been playing together for more than 30 years, still the original members of the quartet, like a marriage. They are currently based in Detmold, Germany.