C hamber music was considered by more narrowly nationalistic musicians to be too ‘academic’, too ‘Germanic’, to deserve a place in Russian [musical canon] at all. When Borodin started work on the first of his quartets in 1875, he wrote to a friend, referring to the nationalist critic of the time as well as to the leading nationalist composer, that ‘to Stassov’s and Mussorgsky’s horror, I have sketched a string quartet’.”M embers of the Nash Ensemble gave a thoroughly compelling performance last night at Wigmore Hall. Stephanie Gonley (vn) was superb, as were David Adams (vn), Lawrence Power (vla), Philip Dukes (vla), Paul Watkins (vc), Alice Neary (vc), mezzo Christine Rice, and pianist Susanna Stranders.
— Anthony Burton, Nash Ensemble program notes, 2010.
W hat striking sonorities the 2 cellos achieve in the Arensky String Quartet in A minor, Op. 35! I’d never heard this work before (unique for its 1 vn, 1 vla, 2 vc orchestration), but, after hearing Nash members perform it, I can only say that, if you intend to create astounding Elegiosity, go for the 2 cellos!
A rensky composed this unusual piece in 1894 as a memorial to his teacher, Tchaikowsky. This was when Arensky was just 33, a short while after Tchaikowsky’s death. The first movement has all the strings with their mutes on—great to hear in an intimate hall like Wigmore, up-close. The A minor theme is taken from ancient Russian Orthodox sacred music—a setting of some psalm or other. The middle section is in A Major; then the psalm theme again, back to the minor, finishing the movement.
T he second movement is comprised of 7 variations on a children’s song by Tchaikovsky, ‘When Jesus Christ was still a child.’ The elaborateness of the 9 minutes of variations upon variations suggests feverish, obsessive grieving. Then the muted 3-minute coda at the end of this movement evokes ancient Russian chant or possibly other archaic atmospherics that would be primevally familiar to Russians. Poignant ‘leave-taking’ as the Nash’s program notes have it. The emotive material in here is amazingly effective even on the limbic systems of us non-Russians… traps like this do not require ‘bait’ to work.
K ravitsa rïbachka!
Prav k beregu ladyu
I vïd, I syad so mnoyu,
Day ruku mne svoyu.
Bolovku mne na serdtse
Bez strakha polozhi.
Morskim volnam bespechno
V veryayesha zhe tï.
A serdtse to zhe more:
To buri v nyoem, to tish,
I mnogo perlov chudnïkh
Sokrïto v glubi.
[Lovely bassin’ gal!
Steer your bass boat to this shore;
Come and sit with me;
Give me your hand.
Lay your head right here,
And don’t be afraid.
Trust me just as much as you trust yourself, heh,
Daily, to those waves there.
My heart is like the sea, you betcha:
It can be calm or choppy,
And lots o’ big pearls
Are hidden in them depths.]”
— D. Kropotkin, after Heinrich Heine.
T he third movement Andante sostenuto tugs on our heartstrings yet more and is followed by Allegro moderato finale, which has fugal structure and develops the nationalistic Russian hymn ‘Slava Bogu na nebe, Slava’ [Слава Богу, на небе! Слава!] (Glory to God in heaven! Glory!), which is found also in the Allegretto of Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 59 No. 2.
F rom a performer’s point of view, this Arensky Quartet is special in another respect: the ‘dialogical’ interactions between the parts have tremendous symmetry or parity in terms of technical and expressive challenges… All of the parts are exciting all of the time, and, despite this surfeit of interesting material, the pungency of so exceedingly much being said miraculously doesn’t tax the listener or undermine the credibility of the memorial. It’s emotionally ‘over-the-top’ in a quintessentially ‘Russian’ style but it never becomes pastiche. Fantastic!
- Arensky – String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35
- Borodin – Songs with cello obbligato (Razliubila krasna-devitsa [‘Beautiful girl fell out of love’]; Slushaite, podruzhen'ki, pesenku moiu [‘Listen, my friends, to my song’]; Krasavitsa-rybachka [‘Beautiful fisher-girl’]
- Tchaikovsky – Night, Op. 73 No.2
- Rachmaninov –The Ring, Op. 26 No.7; To the Children, Op. 26 No.14
- Tchaikovsky – Andante Cantabile from String Quartet No. 1 in D, Op. 11
- Beethoven – String Quintet in C, Op. 29
C hristine Rice’s account of the Borodin folk songs with Paul Watkins’s cello and Susanna Stranders’s piano was superb, drawing shouts and prolonged raucous applause from the normally-reserved Wigmore Hall audience. Her rich, expressive voice and spell-binding operatic gestures abundantly conveyed the passion and desolation—the authentic ethnic Russian sensibility of these lieder.
I t was a surprise to me to learn that the ‘Mighty Five’ or Balakirev group of 19th Century Russian composers took a dim view of ‘chamber music’—they severely criticized Borodin, for example, for engaging in such a diminutive and ‘academic’ genre [see Podlech, link below]. Well, last night—with the ample sound from the Nash members and the exceedingly wide dynamic range that they lent to their interpretation—we experienced a sonorous and strong ‘orchestral’ feel, even in the ‘smaller’ chamber pieces.
C annot help but think that the ‘Mighty Five’ would’ve amended their opinions about chamber idioms had they heard so mighty an ensemble as the Nash. Wow!
- Nash Ensemble website
- Christine Rice website
- Maes F. A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar. Univ California, 2006.
- Taruskin R. On Russian Music. Univ California, 2010.
- Taruskin R. Defining Russia Musically. Princeton Univ, 2001.
- Bassin’ Gal [Рыбачка; Rybachka]
- Nash Ensemble discography at Hyperion Records
- Arensky scores download at IMSLP
- Borodin scores download at IMSLP
- Podlech J. Try and fall sick!—The composer, chemist, and surgeon, Aleksandr Borodin. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2010;49:6490–5.
W hen Alexander was 9 years old, Borodin’s mother was seriously alarmed by his chemical experiments, fearing that her house would be set on fire. Not all his experiments were as harmless as his self-made watercolors, which he used for painting. The incendiary bombs he made in the basement were a particular worry for his parents.”
— Joachim Podlech.
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