CASTALIAN STRING QUARTET
18 November 2018 at 4.00 pm
Sini Simonen (violin); Daniel Roberts (violin);
Charlotte Bonneton (viola); Christopher Graves (cello).
Charlotte Bonneton (viola); Christopher Graves (cello).
Returning to OMS after concerts in 2012 and 2016, the Castalian Quartet are now firmly set on an international career. The only British-based prizewinners at the Banff International Competition in 2016, they have in 2018 won both the inaugural Merito String Quartet and Valentin Erben Prize and a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award.
Mozart:
Fauré: Beethoven: |
Quartet in C major (Dissonance) K. 465
Quartet in E minor Op 121 Quartet in E minor Op 59 No 2 (Razumovsky) |
REVIEW
Octagon Music Society audiences have seen the Castalian Quartet growing up, from their first concert for us in 2012 into a fully-fledged and excitingly confident group. Sunday afternoon’s concert was their third visit, and we now see and hear a Quartet which has already achieved much (see the list of achievements in the Programme), but they are clearly anxious to build on their success. Their playing exudes a youthful exuberance which, allied to a keen ear and sensitivity, makes listening to them a pleasure. Christopher Graves produces a golden tone on his cello, while the leader Sini Simonen has a light silver tone which always manages to surmount whatever thick textures the music presents. The listener can always follow the thread; it is, in the best sense, easy listening. Did you hear any audience coughs during the music? Me neither.
The dissonant start to the Mozart still surprises, but played without over-emphasis it moved seamlessly into the C major first movement. The playing was characterised by meticulous attention to every detail of phrasing and balance. Far from sounding over-rehearsed, it came over as a genuine re-creation, freshly minted and bright. Mozart wrote this quartet when he was much the same age as our players (their average age is 30) and their affinity with the music was clear.
Fauré’s only quartet was a complete contrast to the Mozart; the composer was 79 and it sounded like an old man’s testament. Thicker, even dense, textures here, the melodic material more self-effacing as if the music was reluctant to appear. Seldom played in concert these days, the Castalian found in it an air of restrained romanticism and longing.
The climax of the concert was Beethoven’s second Razumovsky Quartet, in E minor as was the Fauré (there used to be a school of programming which held that too much music in the same key was to be avoided). But now the music was a world away from what we had heard before the interval. The Castalian have devoted many hours to this work and it continues to be the immediate core of their programmes – they played it yesterday (Tuesday) at Wimbledon, next Sunday at Alnwick (with a concert in France on Thursday) and three days later at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and eventually at Wigmore Hall on 30th December. And it sounded on Sunday as if they were still uncovering fresh insights and understanding, yet playing with all the authority and command that close study brings. The slow movement, over twelve minutes of Molto Adagio, was a miracle of architecture, with almost imperceptible changes of tone, balance and tempo making each bar sound like a new adventure. Wonderful music, sublimely brought to life.
OMS rightly feels that the Castalian are old friends by now. The Quartet’s biography told us of their combined achievements, of which they are justifiably proud. Individually, though, their paths to the present are interesting.
Daniel (violin) and Christopher (cello) both studied at Royal College of Music, Daniel originally studying at Royal Northern College of Music. Charlotte (viola), French, of course, studied in Grenoble and Paris and then at our Royal Academy of Music. The leader, Sini, is Finnish and studied at the Sibelius Academy and the Musikhochschule in Hannover. Her career developed around the Baltic countries; she won a prize at the Carl Flesch competition (the violinists equivalent to the Tchaikovsky for pianists). She made concerto appearances with the Finnish Radio and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras which seemed to be taking her in the direction of a solo career. Then she happened to meet members of the Quartet while she and they were studying in Hannover again. They talked, they played …. ‘why don’t you come over to London and see what happens?’ So she did. Five years on, she spends most of her life in the air between England and Finland where she continues to work, oh, and in Denmark where she is in the Esbjerg Ensemble. She plays a 1760 Guadagnini violin, and Daniel plays a 1705 Guarneri on loan from the Worshipful Company of Musicians (of which he is a proud Yeoman!)