Recital
Ardeo Quartet
Manoel Theatre
This was a not-to-be-missed event, but, unfortunately, it was not as well-attended as it deserved. One asks: where were the students who study/ play string instruments, and their teachers? There were few if any!
Fine texture and superb articulation predominated right though the work and its final sweeping allegro
Visiting string quartets of this calibre are rare here and it was an added pleasure that a relatively young formation performed with such maturity.
The quartet’s elegant and classy style showed up right from the beginning with the performance of what certainly was a rarity here: a quartet by Anton Reicha, the Czech who lived the latter half of his life in France.
The justice Ardeo did to the seminal qualities of his mature String Quartet in G, Opus 90, No. 2 came as no surprise to whoever is familiar with Reicha’s work and certainly a revelation to first-time listeners acquainting themselves with what was, for its time, daring music.
Moments of drama were offset by playful almost bizarre touches such as the sliding introduction to the minuetto.
Fine texture and superb articulation predominated right through the work and its final allegro.
The rest of the concert was purely French: the string quartets by Ravel first, then Debussy’s, the only essays in the form by both.
The feeling was, of course, that they belonged to the same time and that in places there was in one a strong reminder of the other while in others this was just a superficial impression.
The ethereal intimacy in Ravel’s opening movement as well as the frissons produced in the trés lent contrasted with the vigorous scherzo and the closing Vif et agité was a fittingly energetic conclusion.
Debussy’s world sounds so peculiarly different. In places lush and exotic, it was projected very well. No less intense in parts, he too provides playful moments. The longish Andantino, doucement expressif was rendered disarmingly in a way that lived up to its name.
Audience reaction to the Ardeo Quartet increased in appreciation, and at the end they were rewarded with an encore. This was the Andante Cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1, in D Major, Opus 11.
Conducted by Rosetta De Battista, this event in the Manoel’s Toi Toi series of activities, aimed at schoolchildren, had the latter interacting very well with the performers.