English quartet fit as a fiddle

HEATH LEES hears how four English musicians are keen to tour in paradise.

Until a few weeks ago, next Monday's concert by the Belcea String Quartet looked like the perfect event.

Chamber Music New Zealand was feeling good about signing one of the newest up-and-coming groups from Britain to launch its 2002 concert series in Auckland.

The quartet (pictured) had just received a Debut Recording Award from the 25th Anniversary Gramophone Awards for their first commercial CD. None of the players had been to New Zealand so they were raring to go, and the arrangements to get them here following a tour of Australia had worked out sweet as a nut.

But even string quartet players get gallstones. Just before they left for Sydney, Krzystof Chorzelski, the viola player, had to go into hospital for emergency treatment. Within days, the Australian tour had been cancelled, and the trip to New Zealand hung in the balance.

Viola players are a resilient bunch though - living through all these viola jokes makes them like that - and soon Chorzelski was pronounced fit enough to go to New Zealand.

Meantime, the quartet's tour of Australia had been re-tuned so to speak, so they could go there in September. All that remained was for five seats (one for the cello) to be found on a plane from London rather than Brisbane - not an easy job at this time of the year - and the New Zealand tour was ready to go ahead, starting in Auckland.

"The gallstone was unpleasant," said Chorzelski, speaking on the phone from London, and enjoying his mastery of English understatement. Born in Warsaw, he moved to Britain 12 years ago, when his teacher was given a contract by London's Royal College of Music, and Chorzelski didn't want to break the bond.

"At that stage I was a violinist," he explains. "I was working on the viola only as a second instrument."

But it was the viola that earned him the chair in the Belcea Quartet, along with Corina Belcea and Laura Samuel (first and second violins) and cellist Alasdair Tait, the group's newest member.

"The quartet started in 1994 as a student group in college, but it became good very quickly, and within a couple of years the gigs were coming thick and fast.

"Before I joined them I had already sat in as second viola in a Mozart string quintet, so when their violist decided to leave to do other things, they asked me to take his place."

Chorzelski agrees that travel and concert-giving can be tiring, but he says playing in a new country is always exciting.

"Over here, the image of New Zealand is like paradise, so yes, we're all coming over to check out our image of paradise." Then quickly he asks about the weather, wondering if it rains in paradise.

Performance is an ongoing thing for this violist, who sees a quartet as much more than just a collection of four.

"The music string quartets play is so rich and varied that you need a total commitment to master it. You have to grow together. Every piece needs to be the finished result from a dialogue of four very different voices, and you have to continually construct and re-construct your performances between concerts."

So far, the Belcea has been recognised for its fine playing in early-20th-century quartets, but Chorzelski fights against being branded.

"In Auckland we'll be playing two mainstream Viennese works, one by Haydn and one by Schubert - marvellous composers who came along at just the right time for the development of the string quartet. We love playing that music, and in fact we'll be playing all the Schubert quartets on our next CD."

Also on the programme is the last quartet by Benjamin Britten. "His swansong," says Chorzelski, "it was some of the last music he wrote; soulful but peaceful."

* The Belcea String Quartet, Auckland Town Hall, March 25.