Thursday 23rd March 2023: Arcadia Quartet with Katya Apekisheva
Triumphant conclusion to Chichester Chamber Concerts season
A hail of “Bravo”s greeted the conclusion of Brahms’ magnificent Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 at the Chichester Assembly Room on Thursday evening bringing the current season of Chichester Chamber Concerts to a triumphant conclusion. The performers prompting this favourable reception were the renowned Arcadia Quartet (Ana Török – violin, Rasvan Dumitru – violin, Traian Boals -viola and Zsolt Török – cello) with the outstanding internationally acclaimed pianist Katya Apekisheva.
The Brahms F minor Quintet had a difficult gestation. Brahms was a notoriously harsh self-critic (he probably destroyed three times as many chamber works than exist today) and he had difficulty finding the right instrumentation for this composition. Following experimentation with different combinations (including piano duet) it was Clara Schumann who suggested a piano quintet to him and the result was the supreme masterpiece that we now know and love. Its composition was a significant step in Brahms’ development and the Piano Quintet is now the most frequently played of all Brahms’ chamber works.
The tempestuous and tragic opening sets the mood for the whole work. Only in the opening of the more lyrical second movement is there much lightness with the piano introducing a rocking, almost lullaby-like, theme that is taken up by the strings. The third movement, a Scherzo, one of Brahms’ most exciting compositions, is sublime. The dramatic progression continues into the Finale giving the piece an overall unity and leading to an explosive conclusion.
The technically demanding piano part was in this performance brilliantly executed by Katya Apekisheva. Altogether this was a performance of great richness and excitement that fully deserved the enthusiastic reception of the audience.
The concert began with a delightful performance of Mozart’s Fantasy in D Minor K.397 by pianist Katya Apekisheva which fully demonstrated her sublime delicacy of touch and dynamic range. It was a dramatic rendition fully enjoyed by a hushed audience.
The other work in the concert was the 6th String Quartet in E minor, Op. 35 by Mieczysław Weinberg. Weinberg was born in 1919 to a Jewish family in Warsaw. His father was a composer and conductor in the Yiddish theatre and his mother an actress. He studied at the Warsaw Conservatory from the age of 12 where he produced his first compositions. The family had already been exposed to anti-semitic violence and at the outbreak of the second World War Weinberg fled, initially with his sister Esther, to Russia. Sadly Esther turned back with sore feet and Weinberg never saw her, or the rest of his family, again; they were all executed in 1943 at Trawniki concentration camp. When Germany invaded Russia in 1941 Weinberg was forced to move again, this time to Tashkent where he met Shostakovich who became a life-long friend and supporter and who urged him to move to Moscow where he remained.
He was a prolific composer whose works included no less than 22 symphonies, 17 String Quartets and 40 film and animation scores.
The 6th String Quartet was written in 1946. It was published due to the influence of Myaskovsky but fell foul of the Composers Union of the USSR in an order that also proscribed the works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Myaskovsky himself. It was never performed in the composer’s life-time; the first performance was given in Manchester in 2007.
It is an understandably dark piece with sinewy lines interweaving between the four instruments throughout. The influence of Shostakovich is evident, but the Quartet lacks the sardonic humour found in even the bleakest of the better-known composers’ works. The Arcadia Quartet are committed to recording as many of Weinberg’s Quartets as possible and no-one present could doubt their commitment to the 6th Quartet and to its composer. It is a complex piece deserving of another hearing.
Peter Andrews