Arts

Music Review: Borodin Quartet presented by Musica Viva

This is the seventh tour of Australia by the highly respected Borodin Quartet. Founded in 1945, the quartet has specialised in the music of Russian composers, but also played a wide variety of works, and collaborated with other artists.

Boro4WebAdelaide Town Hall. Thurs Oct 9 2014

This is the seventh tour of Australia by the highly respected Borodin Quartet. Founded in 1945, the quartet has specialised in the music of Russian composers, but also played a wide variety of works, and collaborated with other artists.

On this tour, their focus is Beethoven and Shostakovich, the latter having had a close relationship with the Quartet: they have played and recorded, the complete cycle of his quartets.

On this tour, they bring No 8 in C minor opus 110, and the one they performed in Adelaide, number 11 in F minor opus 122. Completed in 1966 when the composer was unwell, and mourning the death of a friend, this is a complicated and beautifully structured work, with two main themes. It is almost as though joy and despair are battling for dominance. And although the piece is steeped in sadness, it is difficult not to feel joy when watching the Quartet attack the work with such passion and clarity.

The Beethoven, F major opus 18 no 1, was another exquisite choice. The adagio, particularly, made for an object lesson in the Quartet’s tightness: long pauses, single chords floating on their own, all played with precision and grace.

The final cherry on the cake in their Adelaide program was Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”, a favourite piece of mine, I must confess. Another piece imbued with sadness, yet played in such a way that verve and warmth came through, almost as though the very act of making music embodies the hope seemingly lost in the composition.

The Quartet have another concert in Sydney on the 11th, and then Melbourne on the 14th, with a master class at Australian National Academy of Music on the 13th. If you missed them this time round, I am sure they will be back soon.

This is chamber music at its absolute best.

Meanwhile, I am going out to buy the boxed-set of the Shostakovich…

Reviewed by Tracey Korsten

Website

Remaining shows:

SYDNEY Sat October 11 2pm

MELBOURNE Tue October 14 7pm
Presented in association with Melbourne Festival
– See more at: http://www.musicaviva.com.au/whatson/international-concert-season-2014/musicians/borodin-quartet#sthash.KptUyRlJ.dpuf

 

 

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