Music
Brodsky Quartet/Jonathan Plowright
RCS, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
Five stars
IN answer to the question rather shoved at me after the Brodsky Quartet’s recital at lunchtime on Friday: “When was the last time we heard quartet-playing like that in Glasgow?” the answer is: “probably the last time the Brodskys were here.” Other fine groups have crossed the city boundaries, including the Pavel Haas and Elias Quartets. But the Brodskys are not just world class: they are unique. Between violinists Daniel Rowland and Ian Belton, the extraordinary violist Paul Cassidy and cellist Jacqueline Thomas there is an almost indefinable integrity: it’s as though the four of them think, breathe and respond as one; and that unanimity of thought flows into their playing, characterising their shaping and expression of the music they play.
The net result, for this listener, has always been the same: what you hear is the music; and it’s not being projected at you; rather, you are drawn into its heart and spirit. You know it’s being fabulously-played, but there is no distraction from the core interpretative web of emotional profundity being spun around you. And on Friday, through the magic of this group, you could hear that. In Shostakovich’s achingly-beautiful 11th String Quartet, the entire work, with its seven short movements, has a solitary, reflective character. Even little features which, in another context, might have been witty or sardonic, were all elements in the elegiac mix that reflected Shostakovich’s grief at the death of a friend and musical colleague.
And the group’s glorious, majestic performance, with pianist Jonathan Plowright, of Shostakovich’s great Piano Quintet, reflected equally some of the more public and playful aspects of the composer’s complex persona.
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