{"id":117,"date":"2017-10-26T16:22:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T16:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=117"},"modified":"2017-11-22T11:43:25","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T11:43:25","slug":"concert-review-the-brodsky-quartet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/26\/concert-review-the-brodsky-quartet\/","title":{"rendered":"CONCERT REVIEW: THE BRODSKY QUARTET"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Martin Widden<\/span><\/p>\n

It was once the convention that a concert would begin with a work by a composer from early times; the programme would then move chronologically through pieces by successively more recent composers. A concert by a string quartet might open with a quartet by Haydn (1732-1809), the composer who virtually invented the genre. Next might come a quartet by Beethoven (1770-1827), and the concert might perhaps close with a piece by Dvorak (1841-1904).<\/span><\/p>\n

Not so the programmes put together by the Brodsky quartet: in their Great Hall concert on 19 October, they rejected the obvious chronological order, opening their performance with a new work they had commissioned from the Japanese composer Karen Tanaka, born in 1961. This was followed by the 4th quartet by Shostakovich. Written in 1949, while Stalin was still in power, the quartet takes a considerable risk by including Jewish themes, or at least music that is Jewish in character. Shostakovich\u2019s music had recently been denounced, and he had been dismissed from his post as professor at the Moscow Conservatory, so he was extremely hard up. Despite this, the quartet evokes the horrors experienced by the Jewish people during the Second World War. The players gave it their all, to the extent that the leader broke a string during the performance. He returned to the stage after an absence of less than a minute; remarkably, the players carried on as if nothing had happened. The quartet was not performed until 1953, after Stalin\u2019s death. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the second half of the concert the players focused on a particular musical form: the fugue. (For those unfamiliar with this form, a fugue is based on a simple theme – the subject (a single line of notes), which is played at the outset. This subject theme then enters successively at different pitches, and all are developed together with further entries, so that the whole becomes a fascinating and complex work.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Towards the end of his life, J S Bach composed The Art of Fugue, demonstrating the range of possibilities of composing in this form, and also his own skill at composing in the genre. This is pure music, which can be performed on any instrument or group of instruments, provided it lies within their range of pitch. The Brodsky quartet played two pieces from The Art of Fugue in their concert, showing convincingly that the string quartet is an excellent medium for performing this music.<\/span><\/p>\n

They followed this with a fugue for string quartet by Mendelssohn, a brilliant demonstration of his skill as a composer for this group of instruments. <\/span><\/p>\n

They concluded their concert with a performance of the Grosse Fuge opus 133 by Beethoven, originally composed as the finale of his opus 130 quartet. As its title suggests, it is a massive work, taking some 17 minutes to play. The publisher persuaded Beethoven to compose a shorter and less demanding movement as the conclusion of this quartet, which was published as opus 130. But the original fugal movement, now known as opus 133, remains a towering achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n

This concluded a fascinating concert: excellently played by the Brodsky quartet, and a great start to the 2017-18 Great Hall concert season.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Martin Widden It was once the convention that a concert would begin with a work by a composer from early times; the programme would then move chronologically through pieces by successively more recent composers. A concert by a string … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[65,120,64,63],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributed-article","category-review","tag-classical-music","tag-issue-167","tag-lancaster-arts","tag-martin-widden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-1T","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1185,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/02\/19\/widdens-review-piano-quartet-concert-in-the-great-hall\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":0},"title":"WIDDEN’S REVIEW – PIANO QUARTET CONCERT IN THE GREAT HALL","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 19 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Martin Widden This concert on 30 January 2020 was given by a quartet of violin, viola, cello and piano - a fairly unusual combination, because the modern concert grand can easily drown out the three strings. But Mozart, that brilliant pioneer in all things musical, wrote three works\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1506,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2021\/11\/11\/widdens-reviews\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":1},"title":"Widden’s Reviews","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 11 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed by Martin Widden WATER, MYTHS AND CHANGE AT THE PRIORY The first concert from Lancaster Arts to take place in 2021 with a live audience was held in Lancaster Priory on Saturday 5 June, with full social distancing in place. This meant of course that audience numbers had to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":540,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/05\/10\/martin-widden-snowflake-musician-melter\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":2},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘SNOWFLAKE MUSICIAN MELTER’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"May 10 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Debussy 100 The present year, 2018, is being observed as the centenary of Debussy's death right across the musical world. Why the fuss about Debussy? Debussy's music is unlike that of any previous composer. Indeed, the music critic Paul Griffiths has written that 'if modern music may be said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":337,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/02\/15\/martin-widden-the-man-the-musicians-fear\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":3},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: ‘THE MAN THE MUSICIANS FEAR’","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 15 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Xue Fei Yang plays classical guitar In her solo recital in the Great Hall on 8 February, the Chinese guitar virtuoso Xue Fei Yang chose a programme that gave her ample scope to demonstrate a wide range of techniques of playing the instrument. The earliest composition on the programme\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "review"","block_context":{"text":"review","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":921,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2019\/03\/01\/widdens-wonderful-world-of-woodwind\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":4},"title":"WIDDEN’S WONDERFUL WORLD OF WOODWIND","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 1 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: BBC Phil plays the Great Hall The concert given in the Great Hall on 7 February was the first by the BBC Philharmonic since they were re-appointed as the University's Orchestra in Residence in December. The large audience proved once again that concerts by a full symphony orchestra are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":462,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/03\/15\/martin-widden-red-pilling-the-music-industry-one-concert-at-a-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":5},"title":"MARTIN WIDDEN: \u2018RED PILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, ONE CONCERT AT A TIME\u2019","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 15 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Review: Kathryn Stott It is often asserted that the sound of a violin improves in a period when it is being played quite intensively. And not only the violin - similar claims are made for other stringed instruments. Such claims are widely believed by musicians, but although careful scientific tests\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}