THERE was an electric moment on Wednesday night in Perth at the first concert in the Michelangelo Quartet's six-concert survey of Beethoven's complete string quartets.
Until a month ago, the opening programme was scheduled to feature Beethoven's final quartet (and last work) the F Major Quartet opus 135 as its opener, which everybody I know in the business thought was odd.
Eventually, about three weeks ago, the group concurred, and the programme order was adjusted to open with the relatively early C minor Quartet, the fourth in Beethoven's first group of string quartets, the opus 18; and everybody felt this was sensible: don't start at the end.
On Wednesday, and I kid you not, two minutes before the event was due to start, James Waters, director of music at Perth, charged out from backstage with the news that the group, pictured, had decided to revert to Plan A and open with the final quartet. "When did they decide this?" I asked. "About 30 seconds ago". Ahh... artistic temperament.
Anyway, what followed was almost unbelievable. The Michelangelos are one of the great string quartets of the era.
Mysteriously, magically, they made sense of having the last quartet first: they underlined the tight, aphoristic nature of its material and played a gentle spotlight on Beethoven's nonchalant, throwaway wit in the finale; they also captured the playful elements in the Opus 18 Quartet, while their magisterial, unforced steering of the first opus 59 Quartet revealed the full symphonic dimensions of the huge piece.Michelangelo's playing was out of this world, with structural and dynamic organisation, alongside ensemble coordination, mesmerising in perspicacity and emotional depth.
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