Introducing New Zealand String Quartet's weekend concerts of late Beethoven, leader Helene Pohl came up with some useful and even provocative listening tips.
These works, she told us, were a key to the sound world in which Beethoven's deafness had imprisoned him; from the start, she stressed the deep mysteries that lie in their pages.
Pohl quoted the composer's brother who commented that he would like to hear one of the quartets four times because each instrument was so interesting. Perhaps we might like to construct our own unique interpretations, she asked, by choosing which line or lines we drew out from the mix?
Yet the rich maestoso chords that heralded Opus 127 showed that, after almost a quarter-of-a-century together, the four musicians have created their own unity and signature. Last night, the sheer vibrancy of their playing seemed to find its own harmony with the flickering candles and mysterious purple-lit recesses of St Matthew-in-the-City.
Before too long, the musicians asserted individual voices; eye caught eye, one player occasionally tilting forward to make a point. Beethoven's complex musical conversations could be read on these four faces.
