Music review: Jennifer Gall
Image courtesy of Peter Hislop
The Orava
Quartet’s signature sound is created by a rare combination of intense musical
focus and unequivocally fresh interpretation. Each instrument reflects the
temperament of its player in subtle stylistic vocabulary, but simultaneously sings
with the united voice of the ensemble. Daniel and Karol Kowalick, David Dalseno
and Thomas Chawner are the epitome of Cool as they transport the audience through
their disciplined, yet apparently effortless, response to the chosen repertoire.
Haydn’s
String Quartet No. 30 in E Flat, ‘The Joke’, was played with bounce and
brilliance. A sense of suppressed fun in this performance renewed the work to
speak to a twenty-first century audience. The deliberate affectations in the
score were played to perfection; the pauses cleverly balanced and the
deliberate fizzer of an ending achieved the composer’s intention of creating
much amusement throughout the auditorium.
In
contrast, Sergei Rachmaninov’s Romance and Scherzo resonated through the
combined strings in a smooth river. Chawner’s sonorous viola playing instantly
contradicted every criticism ever made about the instrument sounding muted,
bland or ineffectual. Kowalik is a magician with the cello, coaxing the voice
to leap from the lower register to the upper while preserving even tonal quality
and magically weaving the other instrumental voices more closely together. What
exquisitely nuanced pizzicato in the Scherzo
Allegro as Daniel Kowalik and David Dalseno danced around each other’s
notes.
In another routine miracle, the
Orava quartet lifted Debussy’s notes off the score of the String Quartet in G
minor and created a vivid imaginative experience for each of us in the
audience. I sometimes wish I could see what my fellow listeners are imagining
in a concert, particularly with impressionistic music. Does anyone else experience
a sunny French hillside with small mischievous gusts sending clouds across the
sun in the first movement: Animé et très décidé?
Perhaps it is better not to be able to see into the private imaginings of
others as the music intensifies with increasing sensuality and emotional energy
from Andantino, doucement expressif
to Très modéré – En animant peu à peu – Très mouvementé et avec
passion.
What great joy and what beauty these young men bring to life in
their music as they perform on concert platforms around the world – and how
lucky to hear them in Canberra.