The finest live musical experiences cultivate a silence that immediately supersedes them in which the quality of attention and engagement of the whole room rivals the quality and complexity of emotion of the music itself. The experience lives on. Such a moment hung in almost timeless suspension at the end of the Dante Quartet’s unforgettable performance of Shostakovich’s great and moving 8th String Quartet, dedicated to “the victims of fascism and war”. Following its dyspeptic fury, the exquisite contrapuntal effects, its introspective, intense and glacial harmonies, the aftermath, for seconds, for an age – for our age – glowed with awe, tragedy, tenderness, and wonder amid the embers, a slow processing of the darkening weight of the world as we find it. It was an act of witness in which we were all involved. This is what the best live music does. And the Dante Quartet are among the greatest live artists who do it. How fortunate we were, packed in the Maidment Auditorium, to be so totally enwrapped in this fascinating musicianship of the very highest quality.
The Dante began with ‘Three Divertimenti for String Quartet’ by Benjamin Britten, Shostakovich’s great champion and affiliate. It was interesting to read in the informative programme notes that its first audience in 1936 received this piece with a different kind of silence – “cold” and punctuated by “sniggers”. Poor, dear Ben. He was a man out of time. But this performance felt fresh and exciting in the capable hands of this 21st-century quartet, particularly in the buzzing, finely articulated swarm of the concluding Burlesque. Following the brooding 8th quartet, the Dante returned to lighter mode with Elizabeth Maconchy’s ‘Quartetto Corto’ no.13, delivered with puckish spirit and zippy technical flair.
The second half was given over to Brahms’ first quartet in C minor. Beforehand, the Shropshire Music Trust’s artistic director John Moore paid tribute to the Dante’s rich orchestral pedigree. Violinist Zoe Beyers leads the BBC Philharmonic; Ian Watson led Sir Mark Elder’s Hallé; violist Carol Ella started out with the LSO among many others; Richard Jenkinson is a noted conductor and former principal cello in the CBSO. In this cornerstone of the repertoire (after 20 earlier attempts ended up scrunched up in the wastebin before he dared publish a quartet, you can safely say Brahms is a cornerstone-or-go-home kinda guy) the delicacy and art of ensemble listening was in full, wondrous display. The foursome brought the orchestral forces in miniature to intense and attentive effect, enveloping the attention from the beginning to a bravura, urgent end. There is always a wonderful presiding intelligence that never forgoes lightness of conversational touch when these four play. Hearts and minds are always involved – and won.
James Fraser-Andrews
