Kyan Quartet in Beethoven, Schumann & Caroline Shaw at Conway Corridor’s Sunday Live performance Sequence

They adopted this with the third of Robert Schumann’s quartets, all three written in a single mad rush in 1842, prefiguring a six month interval when Schumann’s manic focus turned to chamber music and he produced most of his greatest chamber works. The quartet made the introduction into a delicate drawing in of the listener, ‘let me inform you a narrative’, then the primary a part of the motion was introduced with sleek magnificence. The 4 gamers had a stunning fine-grained sound, every line characterful and intimate, fantastically and individually phrased. They introduced a classical really feel to the piece, quite than a giant romantic sound, as if we have been listening to early Schumann on the piano. The second motion was mild, cell and impulsive with effectively characterised variations stuffed with contrasts from mild to robust to vigorous. The third motion was easily flowing with intertwining, this temper alternating with one thing extra intense and mysterious. The finale was stuffed with perky rhythms with a pleasant off-beat high quality to them, and a sequence of extremely attribute episodes, the entire ending energetically in a temper that was extremely rhythmically alert.

One other Caroline Shaw piece opened the second half, Entr’acte from 2012, impressed by her listening to the Brentano Quartet performing certainly one of Haydn’s Opus 77 quartets.  It started in an intimate, participating method with an impulsive really feel to the phrases, because the work developed Shaw delighted in seeming to tug the music in an out of focus, weaving moments of aural insanity into extra structural parts and making a sequence of magical transitions between moods, types and states, however lastly the opening materials returned and the piece evaporated.

Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets have turn out to be core elements of the repertoire, however after they have been written they prolonged the quartet style past the conventional well mannered aristocratic salon. Right here was music written for an expert string quartet, music that made composers and performers alike realise the potential of the style. We heard the second of the three quartets Beethoven wrote for Andrey Razumovsky, the Imperial Russian ambassador in Vienna.

The introduction mixed the uncompromising with a way of the intimate and mysterious, resulting in an account of the primary motion that was pressing and managed, by no means excessive however quietly compelling. Like their efficiency of the Schumann quartet, the Kyan Quartet introduced a classical poise to this music and infrequently, if ever, went for the large romantic gesture or meatily expressive tone. All was targeted, poised and high-quality grained. The second motion was quietly concentrated with moments that have been barely there, at all times with a readability and lightness to the textures. The scherzo was flippantly tone, but the irregularity within the rhythms was introduced out. The lastly was tightly managed, rhythms have been tight but there was a lightness of contact to it, with drama solely coming within the improvement part.