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Rating: * * * *
The four players of the Jerusalem Quartet are regular firebrands in the sedate world of chamber music. Their latest CD, pairing Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet with the single-movement Quartettsatz, is a fiery affair.
The 1820 Quartettsatz was denied the companionship of the customary slow movement, scherzo and finale, but then it would have been a hard act to follow. It is dramatic, hyper-dramatic even; you can sense Schubert reaching out for an almost orchestral power.
The tremolo dash of its opening bars is a call to action, and the Jerusalem Quartet are armed and ready. And they do not waver, even for a fraction of a beat. Melodies which, in other hands would be sweet diversions, are given a nervy urgency.
Sforzandi explode like grenades and harmonies swirl in a dizzying spiral. This is music that is both collegial and confrontational. Ekkehart Kroher's excellent booklet essay reminds us that the popular Death and the Maiden Quartet initially received by "no means unanimous approval".
Were Schubert's contemporaries perplexed by its raw emotions and its striving for orchestral effect? More importantly, did they find a defiance and anger here as Schubert railed at the ravages of mortality?
The Berlin studio production certainly invests this recording with an unflinching presence, but the performance itself is one of almost unbearable vertiginous energy. Schubert's well-known song opens its slow movement with a viol-like reserve, but later variations lash out with an unsettling fury.
A recording like this makes one want to experience this music in the flesh. Despair not. On Friday, the Jerusalem Quartet is in Auckland playing Ravel, Smetana and the Israeli composer Mark Kopytman. Smetana's In My Life Quartet just could start a few fires.
William Dart
