Yesterday Margie and I went to Stockholm for one of our regular quartet concerts. We heard the Stenhammar quartet play very well.
They started with a quartet by the seldom played Swedish female composer Elfrida Andrée, not great music, but very nice and worth hearing more of. This was following the Shostacovich 9th, a great work very well played. After the interval they made a very good job of a late Beethoven. As an extra piece they play a charming little Elergy by Tor Aulin (I must try and locate the notes of this).
All in all a very enjoyable concert.
Sadly I can't say the same of a concert here in Västerås with the Brodski quartet. The Brodskis are internationally well know partly because they play both the 'normal' quartet repertoire and also play with a number of singers from other areas, including Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney.
The leader must be the newest and youngest. This quartet play standing, which the lower three do without moving too much. Unfortunately the leader moved and even stamped his feet occasionally! This was rather distracting, and I thought that even the quality of tone wasn't up to the standard I had expected. They played the Puccini Chrysanthemums but it felt a bit weak.
The Brodskis are playing the last of our Stockholm concerts in May, so it'll be interesting to see if they do better in the most prestige full Stockholm, or if they just need to get a new leader!
No comments:
Post a Comment