Danish String Quartet Review – highlights from the world’s top quartet | Classical music

A A standard performance dominated by the second violin, viola and cello. Pieces of music were played as a distant memory by the first violin, which slowly reached the top until the last note. Pizzicato, diminuendo, silence. You are doing an interesting job for a Danish String Quartetcalm settled over the last part of the Shostakovich‘s String Quartet No 3 in F Op 73 like heavy snow. Changing the bows was impossible. The quartet’s silken tone seemed to emanate eerily, out of sync with the tension of the hair on the strings.

Such a quiet reign was especially impressive for the powerful, personal-emotional vocals, the harmony of the vocals and the sound as if the singers had survived. There were voices so loud they were audible – all contact, not audible – and passages that sounded clear in their velveteen weight. However, there were also moments of solemnity and bright classicism. The gearshifts of the atmosphere are sometimes slow, sometimes violent, but invisible: beyond self-explanation. “big beard”The Danish String Quartet is not a group dedicated to recorded performances.

They were, announced the violist Asbjørn Nørgaard, happy to return to Wigmore Hall, “this chamber music church with the best sound in the world”. And you can find out. They were playing Stravinsky’s paintings‘s Suite italienne (arranged themselves) as a demonstration of what a top quartet can do with Hall’s tone. The rococo costumes of the work were elegant and luxurious. Tremolo was delivered on ice, his touch instantly powerful. The bottom lines were chosen sweet and bright. The Quartet reveled in Stravinsky’s longest period of the neoclassical harmonic palette, a leisurely duet that opened the final movement and a sun-filled warmth that blossomed.

After the interval, Ravel‘s String Quartet in F saw another shift in palette. There were open, unforced genitals, shiny and scrubbed with the danger of many insects. A moment in the mix or a slightly wobbly sound was evident, no doubt, in such a well-polished environment. But elsewhere the four musicians seemed to communicate so much – naturally – that their playing sounded like a single, 16-string instrument.