Reviews
Every string quartet worth its rosin plays Haydn. None, though, plays Haydn like the London Haydn Quartet. Where others treat the Classical-period master with deference, these accomplished musicians -- violinists Catherine Manson and Michael Gurevich, violist James Boyd, and cellist Richard Lester -- have devoted themselves to him wholeheartedly, fulfilling a mission to boost the profile of his vast output for their ensemble. Two hundred years after Haydn's death, they're still giving local premieres.
In a rare U.S. appearance Sunday on the "Chapel, Court & Countryside" series in Harkness Chapel at Case Western Reserve University, the quartet offered a deeply nourishing sampling of Haydn's quartets. Listening to three works on their period-style instruments, with the cello and viola seated at the rear, one savored not just the music's formal perfection but also its humor, lyricism and emotional depth.
The first evidence of their intimate knowledge of Haydn came in the A-Major Quartet, Op. 9, No. 6, an early work thought to be a simple entertainment. But if they were considering a lightweight score, there was nothing trifling about their performance.
Rather than hang statically, long notes pulsed in glowing arcs. Virtuoso passages sizzled, and familiar themes, draped in fresh dynamics, took on new character with each reappearance. The central Adagio was an absorbing journey on which the road grew steadily darker.
Representing the so-called "Sun" quartets was Op. 20, No. 2, a masterful work featuring unusual compositional devices such as unison statements and a weighty slow movement situated early in the piece and linked organically to the Menuet.
Living up to Manson's promise of a quasi-operatic scene, the Adagio as performed by London was a wrenching musical episode, full of startling outbursts, agonized cries, and a dramatic cello line hauntingly enunciated by Lester. From there, the quartet launched without a second thought into the concluding fugue, wielding a singular blend of individual independence and collective unanimity.
Before a substantial encore, the London players finished off with the last quartet Haydn completed, Op. 77, No. 2, from 1799. On the program Sunday, it was perhaps the best-known entry.
We were treated to a flawless Allegro, featuring an especially vigorous development. Even more fun was the Menuet, whose steep musical hills and valleys the quartet treated to exhilarating surges.
But the highlight was the Andante; No other group could hope to render its long-spun melody more purely or smoothly. Coming from the London Haydn Quartet, it was definitive proof that it pays to specialize.
Zachary Lewis, The Plain Dealer
March 22, 2010 www.cleveland.com
This 2007 Hyperion recording by London Haydn Quartet of the six Opus 9 quartets makes the case for the works with performances of rare beauty and great power. Played with classical bows on gut strings and performed from a historically informed perspective, the London Haydn Quartet respects the unity, diversity, and relative intensity of these works. Each separate movement is deftly characterized, from the singing Moderato that opens Quartet No. 1 through the racing Presto that opens Quartet No. 6, but the group also balances each work's movements so that every quartet forms a coherent whole. Beyond that, the London's interpretations honor the unique spirit of each work by granting each the appropriate degree of intensity. Compare the Second Quartet's lithesome Adagio -- Cantabile with the Fourth Quartet's melancholy Cantabile Adagio and note how the players' phrasing, accent, and emphasis change between the two. Recorded in clear, close but surprisingly reverberant sound, these recordings will please those who already know the works and interest those who don't.
James Leonard, All Music Guide
Q: What does Harkness Chapel have in common with Carnegie Hall (besides that you have to practice to get there)? A: The good sense to book the London Haydn Quartet.
On Sunday (March 21), this extraordinary ensemble of talented musicians performed at CRWU, two days after a sold-out gig at Carnegie Hall. Once again it was evident that the university’s early music series “Chapel, Court and Countryside” is a great asset to Cleveland music lovers. New York and Cleveland were the quartet’s only North American appearances this year.
The London Haydn Quartet, founded about ten years ago by violinist Catherine Manson and violist James Boyd, elevates Haydn’s string quartets from their usual position as warm-up music in concerts leading to more “serious” stuff. Manson and Boyd, with their equally accomplished colleagues (Michael Gurevich, violin, and Richard Lester, cello), brought out the electricity, intelligence, and sheer entertainment value of Haydn’s quartets.
The ensemble demonstrates that these quartets (some 68 of them!) shine wonderfully when they are performed with sensitivity to the contexts for which they were created. The quartet uses gut strings, and (like baroque string players) they have removed the chinrests, shoulder rests, and endpins from their instruments. At first glance, it seems like a diminution to give up the technologies of the modern string instrument. But in fact they gain from it: their sound is wonderfully articulate, filled with the little speaking chiffs that gut strings give, and which become part of the infectious rhythmic energy of their playing.
The concert was, of course, all Haydn. It began with Opus 9, no. 6, in A. This is Haydn in a relatively decorative mode, with fireworks in the first violin supported for the most part by a loyal underpinning of lower parts (though the second violin gets a workout in the finale as well). The third movement is a gem: an Adagio that pretty nearly tells us of paradise.
Manson introduced the second quartet (Opus 20, no. 2, in C, from only a year later) as an “extraordinary journey,” and it was. In its own way, it is as fascinating and as “Romantic” as middle and late Beethoven, particularly in a quirky second movement, a “Capriccio” full of drama and the rhetoric of some (as yet apparently untraced) narrative. As if to remind us that Romanticism wasn’t yet fully in bloom, Haydn ends the quartet with a fugue on four subjects, played very fast and sotto voce to keep us all on the edge of our seats.
The second half consisted of one quartet, Opus 77, no. 2, in F, probably the last that Haydn completed. This is very much the mature Haydn, opening like a symphony with a big first movement in sonata allegro form. The second movement is a minuet, but could as well have been a scherzo, full of chromatic dislocations and rhythmic surprises, and framing a darkly witty trio in the distant key of D flat. The third movement oddly reminded me of Shostakovich: pretending to be a simple folk tune, but turning on a dime from ordinary to plangent to tragic to bumptious. The last movement brought back the fireworks for a grand finale.
The gorgeous encore– in the current mode of reflective encores – brought us back to Opus 9, this time to the Largo from number 5 in B flat. Haydn apparently called his Opus 9 “divertimenti.” Rightly played, as they were here, these pieces don’t just divert us; they teach us how to see (and hear) with renewed intelligence, feeling, and wit.
The ClevelandClassical.com Blog
May 3, 2010 by Daniel Hathaway
Gut strings sometimes mean sour intonation, but not with this superb British group. Formed out of love for Haydn, they explore his repertoire with a light touch and kaleidoscopic colours. This second Hyperion survey brings the six op 17 quartets: music of domestic relaxation rather than grand public statements, crammed with subtle pleasures. A set to bring long-lasting pleasure.
Geoff Brown, The Times
Haydn: String Quartets
Op 17
London Haydn Quartet
Hyperion CDA67722, 2 CDs, £12.72
Playing with gut strings and classical bows, the London Haydn Quartet brings both freshness and depth to the six works that the composer wrote at Esterházy in 1771. One never ceases to be amazed at the range and resourcefulness of Haydn’s contributions to the quartet medium, even in a set as early as Op 17. The players here are alive to the music’s spontaneity, and to the way Haydn crafts such a fertile mix of melody and texture.
Telegraph rating: * * * *
By Geoffrey Norris
BBC Music Magazine October 2009
Composed around 1770 in rapid succession to the six quartets Op.9, Haydn's Op.17 set is at once fully-ripe with promise yet recurrently frustrating. Over and again, he seems to break through to the fully characteristic manner of the inspired op.20 set, published only two years later - in the boldly argued opening movement of op.17 no. 4, for instance, or the enchanting folkloristic minuet and trio of No.3 in E flat. Elsewhere, however, the stylistic lurches and bald textures tell of a 30-something composer still laying the foundations of a novel medium that in due course would enable him to compose no fewer than 45 peerless masterpieces.
The London Haydn Quartet, whose recording of the Op.9 set on Hyperion has already been widely praised, play on gut string with classical bows. Those who want a 'period' performance should not hesitate; they are unlikely to hear any better of its kind. Articulation is light, precise yet full of nuance; vibrato is scarcely detectable yes intonation is immaculate; the whole texture shines.
Bayan Northcott
FESTIVAL OUDE MUZIEK Utrecht
The London Haydn Quartet honours its namesake with an extrovert, coherent (tr: sharply tuned to each other) sound, which comes close to the sound of a modern string quartet. Especially in the quartet op. 76 no. 5, a work that pares a big internal compression with almost symphonic arches of tension, the foursome gave it everything.Volkskrant 7.9.09
Classic FM Magazine September 2009
4 out of 5
The canon of Haydn's mature string quartets in usually reckoned to begin with the op.20 set of 1772; but this splendid recording shows that Op.17 is almost as fine. Some of the writing reflects the skill of Luigi Tomasini, the leader of the orchestra at Esterhaza, where Haydn was employed; elsewhere, the four players are treated equally. Catherine Manson brings a nice rubato to the violin's flight in the first movement of no.5, and makes the most of the operatic recitative in the Adagio. She and her colleagues find all the seriousness in Quartet No.4, and all the lightness of Quartet No.6, with its witty, throwaway ending. RL
"This second Hyperion survey brings the six op 17 quartets: music of domestic relaxation rather than grand public statements, crammed with subtle pleasures. A set to bring long-lasting pleasure."
The Times, 13th June 2009 ****
"The players here are alive to the music's spontaneity, and to the way Haydn crafts such a fertile mix of melody and texture."
Daily Telegraph, 10th June 2009 ****
"These musicians arrest attention by the variety of their bowing and articulation. They lean into notes, swelling and contracting the sound (a sort of messa di voce) to heighten the potential for expression. The first movement of No 2 (Moderato) offers an example of this technique which is allied to discerning part-playing, fine grading of tone and flexible rubato. A very imaginative interpretation."
Gramophone Magazine, September 2009
5 Star : Haydn - String Quartets Op. 9
Op. 9 (written c.1769) marked Haydn's emergence as the great pioneer of the string quartet genre. He later wished that these had been his first quartets to be disseminated among the musical connoisseurs and string players of Europe. Two previous sets of quartets had been composed about a decade earlier, but were brief, light works that were functional rather than the inspired and extended explorations we find in Op. 9.These performances by the London Haydn Quartet are marvellous. The group – making its debut recording for Hyperion – achieves a wondrous paradox between individual sensitivity on each line and an overall unity of ensemble. Weightier movements which suggest more symphonic thinking on Haydn's part are beautifully judged, with a perfect synthesis of elegance, warmth, emotion and taste.
The lyrical largo from No. 3 in G major is a fine example of the quartets shapely playing and exquisitely balanced blend. Livelier quick music and minuets are also done with astonishing brilliance, gracefulness and intelligence. These are highly articulate, subtle and civilized performances.
The players are obviously thoroughly absorbed in the music, and their curiosity in the repertoire is evident in their decision to eschew modern editions and play from the 1790 London edition published by Longman and Broderip. Richard Wigmore's essay on the music is a perfect match of erudition and readability, and Hyperion's sound engineering team have done a magnificent job. This is one of the finest Haydn discs I have heard in quite some time.
DAVID VICKERS
30-06-2008
Classic FM Magazine - December 2007
Haydn Six String Quartets, Op.9
The London Haydn Quartet
The earliest of Haydn's string quartets were not described as quartets at all but as ‘divertimenti'. Many were originally intended for outdoor performance in the streets of Vienna, often to serenade society ladies at their balconies. The original instrument London Haydn Quartet play with such deep feeling, dynamic subtlety and phrasal sensitivity that even the simplest ideas become things of wonder. Passages of generic cadencing and decoration that often pass by unacknowledged by other ensembles sound utterly magical here, the enhanced expressive flexibility of gut strings revelled in to the full. Without doubt one of the all-time great Haydn quartet recordings.
Hyperion CDA 67611
Julian Haylock
Gramophone Magazine - December 2007
Josef Haydn. Six String Quartets, Op.9
Hyperion CDA67611 133' DDD
Delicacy and nuance which makes the listener a privileged eavesdropper.
Haydn's Op.9 quartets of c1769 have always led something of a shadow life. The minor mode around this time invariably drew a special rhetorical intensity from Haydn; few would disagree that No.4 is the finest of the set. There are occasional longueurs elsewhere, nowhere more so than in the knit-your-own variations that begin no.5. Compensations, though, abound: say, in No.6's hunting-style opening Presto; in the sorrowful, Gluckian C minor Aria in no.2; or, more obviously in the entertaining finale, all of which feature far more dramatic interplay than in the first-violin-dominated earlier movements.
The London Haydn Quartet, using gut strings with classical bows, opt to play, controversially, from a 1790 London edition which even lops bars out of the first movements of Nos. 4 and 6. Initially I thought the playing, with its abstemious use of vibrato and limited dynamic range, slightly austere. But I quickly warmed to the pure, glowing sound of gut string played perfectly in tune, and to the ensemble's delicacy of nuance and sensitivity to harmonic colour, treating the listener as privileged eavesdropper. They take a very broad, ruminative view of the Moderato opening movements of nos 1-4 and while I would have preferred more fire and forward momentum, even a touch of brilliance, in the first movements of nos 2 and 3, in the first movements of nos 2 and 3, the players are always keenly alive to both the smaller and larger shapes of the music. Catherine Manson is a graceful and nimble leader, and the less-favoured lower instruments ensure that accompanying figuration never lapses into routine. And when, in the finales, they have a chance to compete on equal terms, the results are delightfully witty and spirited. Recorded in the warm, sympathetic acoustic of St. Paul's Deptford, these performances should win new friends for an undeservedly neglected set.
RICHARD WIGMORE
MusicOMH.com
Haydn's Op.9 string quartets, composed around 1770, roughly a decade after his first attempt at the genre, probably represent the true birth of the medium. On this superb double disc set from Hyperion, the London Haydn Quartet's playing of the set is intense, passionate and revelatory. It is difficult to imagine finer interpretations of these occasionally formulaic but always melodically colourful works.
The quartet - comprising Catherine Manson and Margaret Faultless on violin, James Boyd on viola and Jonathan Cohen on cello - play on gut strings with classical bows. There is to be found none of the reserve or prissiness that can sometimes characterise period performance. The sound here is bright, resonant and gritty, the lack of vibrato adding a spicy, piquant tang to the ensemble timbre. The bowing is confident; tempi are firm and steady, yet subtle inflections and rhythmic manipulations crank up the drama to breaking point.
There is not one dull passage on either disc; the group fully understand the architecture of each quartet and strive to bring a natural ebb and flow to their playing. At times, one is reminded of Philip Larkin's glorious description of string playing: "cascades of monumental slithering". Not that there is no moment of repose: in the Adagio of No.6, a stately violin aria with fluttering, murmuring triplet accompaniment, one cannot help but bask in the gloriously lyrical, graceful violin solo, by turn searing and withdrawn, brushed with flecks of glinting portamento.
Quartet No.4 is perhaps the most famous of the set - possibly the first of the six to be written (consequently it's the first work on the CD) and Haydn's first quartet in the minor key. Here, the group's vibrato-less sound gains an eerie, strangely nocturnal quality. Their expressive range is great, with large dynamic and textural palates; Haydn's stuttering, sighing melodic lines and rhythms are carefully, confidently laid out. And the players know when to hold back too: the Presto's contrapuntal opening is subtly, not ostentatiously, virtuosic, while the development section's arpeggiated staccato passages eagerly and successfully balance raucous comedy with sad resignation.
The trend continues, every performance a minor masterpiece of deft, dramatic playing. Hyperion have recorded the performances in clear, clean (if not luxurious) sound, with each string line bright and carefully balanced and no extraneous noise present. Richard Wigmore's concise, thoughtful programme note can only add to appreciation of these fine works.
Dave Paxton
Musicweb international
