Belcea Quartet at Peoples' Symphony Concerts

Last night, the Belcea Quartet performed at Washington Irving High School under the auspices of Peoples' Symphony Concerts, and gave a preview of their forthcoming "uptown" concerts at Zankel Hall (Carnegie Hall's small underground theater).  Up at Zankel, they will be playing some concerts in collaboration with Piotr Anderszewski as part of his Szymanowski series.  The preview consisted of two of the works that they will play uptown: The Szymanowski 2nd Quartet and the Bartok 1st Quartet.

The combination of those two pieces, placed on either side of the intermission, prompted a slight exodus of audience members at the break.  Bartok is still considered a bit tough by some concert-goers - ironically so in the case of his First Quartet, which -- once the ears adjust a bit -- is a big old romantic quartet, largely predating the composer's infatuation with the characteristic tropes of eastern European folk music.  The Szymanowski was much more challenging, a piece from twenty years later that reflects the influences of the revolutionists (Stravinsky, Schoenberg) who had explored new directions in rhythm and harmony.  While it shouldn't be overwhelming for today's listeners, it probably remains so to some degree, judging by the looks of audience members around me.

The Belcea played both works like accomplished masters.  The quartet takes its name from first violinist Corina Belcea-Fisher, with second violinist Laura Samuel, violist Krzysztof Chorzelski, and cellist Antoine Lederlin.  They joined together as students at London's Royal College of Music in 1994, made a big splash soon after on the English concert scene, and have attained world prominence with their EMI recordings and frequent touring. 

They opened the concert with a sharp contrast to what came later - Beethoven's String Quartet No. 6 (from Op. 18), an early piece heavily under the sway of Haydn.  Here their lively conception also included a certain rough-and-ready tone quality in the faster music that hardly prepared one for the suavity of the sound in the early 20th-century works.

They also picked an odd piece for their encore - the "Solo" movement from Britten's 3rd Quartet.  Odd, because at the end of a concert one expects something rather lighter.  Of course, they are absolute masters of this music, having recorded it and played it throughout the world, but it did feel slightly inappropriate at the end of this concert.  Not to say the performance was less than excellent!

In any event, chalk up another triumph for Peoples' Symphony Concerts.  I was disappointed that there were so many empty seats last night.  This series has so much to offer, but no real budget for publicity, so reliance on newspaper coverage of concerts and word of mouth is all they have to attract new listeners.  I hope my blog entries on the concerts make a modest contribution to this.  They will be mailing out the brochures for next season in about a month.  As soon as I have mine, I'll add my voice through a posting on this blog.