The "New" Juilliard Quartet at Peoples' Symphony Concerts

Peoples' Symphony Concerts presented the second program in the "Mann Series" (named for their long-time former manager, Joseph Mann) last night at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan.  The Juilliard Quartet performed, as they have continuously since they were first founded, with something new: Nick Eanet was sitting in the first violin chair for the first time at Peoples' Symphony.  And perhaps he provided the extra spark, because this did seem like a "new," rejuvenated Juilliard Quartet.

The program was a bit on the long side.  Schubert's A minor Quartet, D. 804, known as the Rosamunde because one movement uses a theme from the composer's incidental music to the play of that name, is one of the long quartets from his last period of composition.  This was followed by Bela Bartok's Quartet No. 2, also long compared to his other early quartets.  After intermission we had Beethoven's final work in the genre, Quartet No. 16 in F, Op. 135.  The program, which began at 8, stretched far beyond 10 pm.  But that didn't deter the Juilliard from playing an encore in response to the rapturous response they got from the audience: the minuet movement from Felix Mendelssohn's Quartet #3 in D, a bit of loveliness to send us off into the night.

What distinguished the Juilliard's playing last night for me was the full, luscious tone they produced in the quieter moments throughout the program, and their ability to make the occasionally abstract-sounding Bartok acquire rather more emotional resonance than one usually hears.  By contrast, the second movement of the Bartok and the second and final movements of the Beethoven sometimes had a coarse-sounding quality, but that seemed appropriate in light of the interpretations.  The middle movement of the Bartok is clearly intended by the composer to be rough-hewn, racous at times, and so it was played here.  Beethoven's scherzo also has a sort of rough, burly humor, well caught by the Juilliards.

I was only let down a bit by the Schubert, and it was not the fault of the musicians.  Schubert's "late" quartets ("late" only in the sense that they were composed in his final years - Schubert did not live long enough [1797-1828] to have a "late" period) are just too long.  I suppose they are not too long in the sense that they are made up of gorgeous music and all of the structural implications are worked to their full extent, but they are too long in the sense that things begin to feel repetitious and overextended.  My theory is that Schubert, not being taken up quickly into the repertory of public performance in Vienna during his lifetime, suffered a bit from the problem of not getting to hear his works performed before large concert audiences, and thus not getting that crucial feedback necessary to revise his work.  If he had that opportunity, perhaps he would have been inspired to do some judicious editing of his work before it was published.  But since the publications of his "late" works were posthumous, they are complete, since who would dare tinker by making cuts?  And the tradition has been to play Schubert's late quartets and sonatas complete, treating every note as sacred.  I think Schubert needs a good editor....

On this occasion, the venue of Washington Irving High School was less than ideal.  The place has great acoustics, but in bad weather can be less than salubrious due to noise.  Heavy rain burst out several times during the concert, and could be clearly, even a bit obtrusively, heard pounding on the roof of the old school building.  Things were not helped by the unseasonably warm night, since the doors to the auditorium had to be kept open for ventilation and it sounded like the janitorial staff was busy making some sort of repairs that require hammering somewhere in the distance during the final movement of the Beethoven....  (On Saturday night??)