THE Belcea Quartet completed its two-day survey of Bartók's six string quartets on Saturday. It was on to the even numbers which, as an intense threesome, pose as much of a challenge to the audience's concentration as the players' own unerring mental
and physical abilities.
No worries on the latter count, and no surprises either. With an exhilarating CD recording of the complete quartets behind them, they know this music inside out. But what we also had here was the robustness and spontaneity of live performance.
The elusive austerity that pervades the Second Quartet was transfixing, Bartok's typically cloying tussle between major and minor tonalities materialising as a heaving tour de force, the bleakness of its final heartbeat exhaustive and fulfilling.
If the more quixotic layout of the Fourth Quartet heightened and tested the individual dexterity of the Belcea players, there was no slackening of charged tension as a result. Then the gravitas of the Sixth, and a finale to this series that summed up Bartók's ambitions completely: the perfect balance between rigorous structuralism and ecstatic expression. As for the audience: no mistaking its elation and immersion in the series. Hard work on all fronts, but well worth it.
The full article contains 210 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
