Weinberg, Shostakovich Quatuor Danel Wigmore Hall, 6.5.2025
Weinberg String Quartets: No. 14, Op. 122 (1978); No. 15, Op. 124 (1980)
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp, op. 142 (1973)
This was a rare opportunity to hear two Weinberg String Quartets in one evening, juxtaposed with one of Shostakovich’s greatest works in that genre. Neither of the Weinberg works have tempo indications as such, just metronome makings.
The Fourteenth Quartet was dedicated to Yuri Levitin (a pupil of Shostakovich); there are no known performances of the work until the present quartet introduced it in 2007. It is cast in five movements and is conceived as a memorial to Shostakovich (and its material includes the use of Shostakovich’s DSCH motif).
The first movement begins with a remarkable, modernist passage, declamatory cello announcing wide registral spaces against active, agile first violin. The ‘pairing off’ of players sems to be a feature of this quartet, too, Weinberg contrasts this with both slowly moving, reflective passages of song against slowly revolving chords, or highly rhythmic passages. The Quatuor Danel understands both the compositional process and he overall mood of the music; one can hear this again in the performance of the faster third part of the work. Muted, pianissimo, his twisted counterpoint is contrasted with music of what might be termed ‘almost nobility’ and passages wee folksong seems to appear. While Shostakovich is obviously the principal external point of reference, the shadow of Bartók resides here, too, all within Weinberg’s own individual signature. The finale was extraordinary, a red raw explosion. The piece requires four absolutely equal players, and certainly received it here; a special word for viola player Vlad Bogdanas, who cedes noting in volume to his colleagues and who plays with preterminal security. A one point he preseted two repeated notes in different registers and gave them such different characters it sounded ike two players on wo instruments. The finale begins like a folk tune, and a jaunty one at that, give superbly by second violin Gilles Mllet; return to cello and violon, even more aggressive this time, leads to a point of maximal angst. Cellist Yovan Markovitch plays with the most remarkable intensity; this was a performance of huge impact, the close lingering magnificently in the air (helped by the complete control of the final diminuendo.
The Fifteenth Quartet dates from 1980 and is a series of tableaux with false finale (the fourth movement). It all evolves from humble origins, though: a muted lullaby with Weinberg harmonic twists. The music is beautiful, but vulnerable; it is Bartók that springs mainly to mind here, and again later in the night music of the third section. In between, comes an astonishingly powerful violin solo, Marc Danel’s instrument ascending very much on high. The restless opening to the fourth movement feels like post-late Beethoven at times. Weinberg’s use of frenetic, angular melodic shapes in this work juxtaposed with muscular, grinding harmonies (a tiple time ‘march’ at one point). The use of extreme highs and lows of register and even a Shostakovich-like pizzicato dance make this hugely varied terrain, at times alarming, at times heartbreaking. A remarkable performance.
Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Quartet is pair of a sequence of late quartets that move ever closer to the silence of the beyond and occupy dark spaces indeed. Anyone who has heard the Borodin Quartet in these works (they did a cycle in London many years ago now) wll know just how crushing this music can be. While the Wainberg certainly had huge intensity, the Quatuor Danel’s performance of Shostakovich 14 was less so. The undercurrent, the frisson, of terror that underlies the music was largely absent. On the surface, this is really rather accessible music, clever in its use of both quotation both from Shostakovich’s own works, but also from others (including Wagner’s Tristan). The piece is dedicated to Sergei Sharinsky, the cellist of the Beethoven Quartet.
The piece was begun on a visit to Britten in Aldeburgh. The opening might have a jaunty tune in the cello, but the drone on viola s decidedly destabilising. The music did sound remarkably open after Weinberg’s Fifteenth Quartet. There is no doubting whatsoever that the Quatuor Danel knows this music inside out: ensemble was perfect, and so was balance (no shrinking violet viola playing here!). The pronounced cello part was superbly despatched by Yovan Markovich, and when Shostakovich goes into lilting populism (albeit through his own filter), the music danced. Perilous passages for second violin (Gilles Millet) were given with supreme confidence and accuracy.
Here’s the first movement, in the Quatuor Danel’s most recent recording:
Shostakovich composes three broadly equidurational movements; his characteristic ‘Allegretto’ marking (which always seems so harmless but usually isn’t) for the outer movements frames a central Adagio initiated by solo violin, its large intervals expressive, then grounded by quieter, sustained viola and cello. The music here has a real transparency, and is more luminous than Weinberg seemed capable of in the first half. There was much beauty here, not least when Danel floated a melody to perfection. But the final touch of rawness was absent.
It was not at all absent in the finale, with its shard-like syncopations and pointillistic writing. One as to acknowledge Marc Danel’s own contribution of a passage that was extraordinarily dark and veiled. Interestingly, again, on heard Shostakovich through a Weinberg lens in the passage for violin and cello, at opposite ends of the range. Moments of sudden Romanticism were grabbed for all they were worth before being subsumed into an argument that seemed to force its way forwards. I also don’t think I have ever heard a viola pizzicato so loud.
It is interesting to hear the Quatuor Danel’s most recent performance of this Shostakovich (part of a complete cycle captured live at Mendelssohn-Saal, Leipzig Gewandhaus in February and May 2022 and released on the accentus label); I do feel more of the undercurrent of angst there. You can hear the first movement above, And please note the Danel Quartet recorded a complete cycle previously, too, but with only 50% of what is now its personnel (Vlad Bogdanas and Yovan Markovitch replaced there by Tony Nys and Guy Danel): the Musicweb-International review of that earlier set is here.
I came for the Weinberg, though, and was not disappointed in the slightest. Michael Church’s excellent spoken introductions make it all of an event (the stream is free, but registration is required, on the Wigmore Hall website; it is also on YouTube here). The Quatuor Danel has recorded the Weinberg Quartets for cpo.
There was an encore: two arrangements made by Sergei Samsonov, from Prokofiev’s Op. 22 Visions Fugitives, Nos. 8 and 14, the first perfectly judged, easy-going with a hint of Gallic-Russian sophistication, the second more Prokofiev in Russian, rhythmic, even motoric mode. It was a perfectly placed encore.
The Shostakovich and Pokofiev discs are available at Amazon here and here.
