Dante Quartet
St John’s, Hampstead
The Dante Quartet (pictured) gave the audience at St John-at-Hampstead the opportunity to see and hear their interpretations of some well-loved repertoire.
They also offered some contemporary writing for the medium in David Matthews’ Sixth Quartet, all as part of the Hampstead and Highgate Festival.
The evening opened with Beethoven’s La Malinconia quartet, played with poise and making full use of Beethoven’s stark dynamic contrasts and accents to give a folky, weighty feel.
While Judith Busbridge and Pierre Doumenge took care of driving the energy on viola and cello, Krysia Osotowicz and Matthew Truscott blended their tones beautifully when passing themes around.
Occasionally, Osotowicz’s tone quality suffered in the staccato lines, making the whole sound a little too jagged, but in the more lyrical passages, the four players created a warm, settled and intelligent musical environment. David Matthews’ sixth quartet stems from the adagio movement which was written as a reaction to the death of his friend.
In the first movement, the Dantes showed the beauty of both individual tone and how well matched they were, especially in the echoing passages at the end of the first movement. The adagio was movingly played with incredibly tense, angst-ridden phrases giving way to captivatingly still, muted sections.
The players experimented with all sorts of sound colours, as required by Matthews’ writing, and provided a coherence and energetic drive through a work which made full use of each of the stringed instruments.
After the interval, there was a brief introduction to Ravel’s quartet, disagreeing with some opinions of the programme note writer.
The Dantes studied the quartet hard before deciding on their interpretation which was certainly grounded and well-rooted. Tempo and character changes were often pronounced and some pizzicato passages almost felt pedantic in the tempo set, but they soon gave way to wonderfully carefree soaring lines from the first violin and just as tension built up at points, it relaxed in tender playing, producing an emotionally charged performance.
Watch out for them at the Wigmore Hall on June 3 (see listings).