Quartetto di Cremona
Quartetto di Cremona
Perth Concert Hall
Michael Tumelty
WELL, now we can answer the question. Is the Quartetto di Cremona, whose progress we have followed in recent years with all those CD recordings of Beethoven's complete string quartets, really that good? A fair question: they've never played Scotland before, and practically anything can be achieved today in the recording studios.
The short answer? Yes, they jolly well are that good; and what an unqualified thrill it was to hear them in Perth Concert Hall on Monday, with a near-incredible performance of Shostakovich's Tenth String Quartet, which revealed altogether unfamiliar facets of the Italians' own performing art, and a thesaurus of fresh perspectives on the Shostakovich, whose performance was a masterpiece of understatement.
There is a wonderful mix to the group. Very much at the front is first violinist Cristiano Gualco, a player of fierce intensity and drive with, at the other end, the big man on cello, Giovanni Scaglione, whose soulful lyricism would melt ice. Second violinist Paolo Andreoli and violist Simone Gramaglia complete an ensemble that is as homogeneous in its musical integrity as it is individualistic in its character and questing interpretations.
They completely opened up the complex structure of Beethoven's opus 131 quartet: it was not a series of seven sections, it was a genuine continuum.
And they topped it all out with a heart-stopping encore of the Cavatina from the opus 130 Quartet, delivered as a study in how to stop time while sustaining momentum.
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