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Belcea Quartet, Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Power, passion and panache are the dominant qualities of the Belcea Quartet, as the players so artfully displayed at the Jacqueline de Pré Music Building last week. Founder and leader Corina Belcea-Fisher is mesmerising to watch and listen to; her whole body seems immersed in the music as she teases out sounds of immense quality, and her strong leadership skills inspire rather than overshadow the other players, who more than hold their own in this well-established ensemble.
The quartet's technical and artistic qualities were immediately evident in Haydn's Quartet in D Major, in which the composer's textural and rhythmic challenges were met with masterful assurance. Just occasionally, though, one longs for a little more subtlety in their approach. There is a sense that the Belceas are never happier than when grinding away at their instruments with as much force as they can muster, imbuing the music with just a little more vigour than is sometimes justified.
Britten's Quartet No. 3, written when the composer had suffered a stroke and sensed that he was nearing the end of his creative life, gave them much more legitimate opportunity to summon up all the power at their disposal, and they did so with considerable relish. The agitated mood that cuts into the first movement, the stridency of the second movement and the vigorous Scherzo of the fourth - all these are musical gifts for a quartet like the Belceas. Yet they showed some rare moments of calm and poise, too, and Corina Belcea-Fisher's interpretation of the first violin melody that forms the core of the third movement captured its profundity with a sound that was breathtakingly beautiful.
Schubert, too, with his emotional intensity, is another gift for the Belceas; in his Quartet No.15 in G, written only two years before his untimely death at 31, passion and drama cascaded from the platform in a heartfelt torrent, before coming to a vigorous conclusion with the tarantella-style finale.
5:05pm Wednesday 30th April 2008
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