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15 March 2010
Chamber Music New Zealand has always looked after its loyal audiences, bringing the best the world can offer to local concert stages.
The Borodin Quartet’s Saturday concert was a brilliant launch for CMNZ’s 2010 season and it is extraordinary more Aucklanders did not embrace this opportunity to enjoy what some would travel to the Wigmore or Carnegie Halls to experience.
And, I pondered, was there some very Russian humour afoot, basing a programme around Brahms and Tchaikovsky, two composers who were, at best, cautiously amicable?
However, Tchaikovsky, who considered Brahms’ music to be on the dry side, would have been smitten by the sweetness of the German’s A minor quartet on this occasion.
From the opening, with Ruben Aharonian and Anderi Abramenkov’s violins floating over roving triplets and Vladimir Balshin’s sturdy bass, this was transcendently beautiful.
Textures, so easily muddied, were limpidity itself. The second subject came with a real Viennese grace and when Brahms directed Aharonian to caress one theme, he did just that. The sweep of the phrases, the unerring attention to underlying structures and unimpeachable unisons in the intonation department were features throughout, while the Finale showcased the sumptuous sounds these musicians are known for. Shostakovich’s First quartet was elegantly delivered. The waltz-like first movement shifted from romantic to skittish and the crystalline sonorities of its second movement caught the breath.
Tchaikovsky’s Second string quartet can straggle somewhere under the bows of the unwary, but the Borodins made a strong case for it. Its first movement offered a cornucopia of colours, with balletic splendours in its margins. After a clever scherzo the slow movement was an oasis of loveliness.
And, after the drive of the Polonaise-fired Finale, the composer’s famous Andante cantabile was just the right encore, poised on the brink of the sentimental but never succumbing to it.
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