Intimacy in Music is how this concert was dubbed. The intimacy in question was that provided by the magnificently beautiful, little church in Valletta of Nuestra Señora del Pilar, as the Aragonese Knights who built it would have called it.
This architectural jewel with its excellent acoustics provided a lovely backdrop to the music.
The latter was intimate by the very nature of the works chosen for performance by the Lumia Quartet.
This is formed by flautist Fiorella Camilleri, violinist Reggie Clews and cellist Yaroslav Miklukho who are all members of the Malta Philharmonic together with well-known viola (and violin) player Sarah Spiteri.
Spiteri, playing the viola in this formation also introduced the pieces in her usual chatty, witty and inimitable way.
The interesting thing about the composers whose works were performed was that they were all somehow overshadowed by some of their great contemporaries. Georg Abraham Schneider (1770-1839) sort of had to cope with his fellow German, Beethoven; Michael Haydn (1737-1806) had his famous elder brother Josef and well, Johann Christian Bach (1735-82) was a Bach.
Yet, this did not lessen their merits as admirable composers in their own right and one could say that the Lumia Quartet did justice to this beautiful music which was melodious, at times intricate but always fresh and well-crafted.
The Lumia Quartet did justice to this beautiful music which was melodious, at times intricate, but always fresh and well-crafted
A lot of work fell upon the flute because the instrument dominates the Schneider Quartet in G minor, Op. 69, N. 3 and Michael Haydn’s Quartet in D Major.
This does not mean that the other instruments are just idle and mechanical accompanist.
The writing for the strings in the former work is strongly linked to the classical idiom and looks ahead to newer pastures.
The music was delivered in a smooth flow with a graceful, central poco adagio flanking the more energetic outer movements.
While no less stylishly performed, the two-movement Michael Haydn quartet came across as more deeply rooted in the late baroque form as regards instrumental texture.
J.C. Bach was admittedly a fine composer in his own right, enough to say that he greatly influenced Mozart. His Quartet in C Major, Wq., B. 58, also in two movements, differs from the above in that while more entrenched in classicism allows more freedom and opportunity for the string instruments to share thematic material with the flute.
Also notable was the more sedate rondo when compared to the livelier conclusion of the Michael Haydn quartet.
This concert was the last in the series for the 2014-15 season presented by the University of Malta’s Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT). The series will resume after summer.