Mannes: Orion Quartet Performs Haydn, Bartók and Bridge

Thursday evening, the Orion Quartet gave the third of their four annual recitals at Mannes.  Here was one of the world's best chamber ensembles performing a selection of works by Haydn, Bartók and Frank Bridge.

The first work was Haydn's Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3 (1772).  The Op. 20 quartets are best known today for the influence they exerted on the development of the modern string quartet.  They exerted a great deal of influence on Mozart's and Beethoven's work in this genre and, along with the later Op. 33 quartets, helped Haydn earn his reputation as "the father of the string quartet."  The piece is is more emotionally expressive than Haydn's earlier work, and its dark emotional outlook represents a change in the composer's style that can also be seen in the symphonies written during this same period.  This was the era during which the sturm und drang movement, championed early on by both Goethe and Schiller, gained prominence in Europe as a reaction to the dry rationalism of the Enlightenment.  The Op. 20 quartets are particularly notable for the new emphasis Haydn placed on the lower register strings.  Rather than using the viola and cello merely as accompaniment to the two violins, the composer gave them both distinct voices and equal parts in a manner Goethe described as "four rational people conversing."

The next work was Bartók's Quartet No. 6 (1939).  This was the piece that was of most interest to me.  Although it was the quartets that first drew me years ago to an appreciation of Bartók's music, it has only been fairly recently - largely through listening to performances conducted by Iván Fischer with the Budapest Festival Orchestra - that I have come to appreciate the composer's impact on twentieth century music and to better understand the full range of his achievements.  Still, I think the quartets, most notably the No. 6, the last work he composed in Hungary, are really his masterpieces.  The problem is that many ensembles that attempt these pieces do not really seem to approach them properly.  Many times I have been disappointed to hear the quartets played as though they were classical compositions.  My own favorites are the performances by the Takács Quartet which I feel best preserve the Hungarian idiom employed by Bartók in the composition of his music. Nonetheless, I was still very much impressed by the interpretation presented by the Orion Quartet. It was not at all academic in its presentation and showed full respect for Bartók's intentions.  The performance was thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable.

After intermission, the Quartet was joined by violist Michael Tree, formerly of the Guarneri Quartet, and cellist Marcy Rosen in a performance of Bridge's Sextet in E-flat, H. 107 (1906- 1912).  This was the first time I had heard any of Bridge's music.  Hitherto, I had known of him primarily as the teacher of Benjamin Britten.  The music was pleasant and melodic but somewhat anticlimactic after having heard the works by Haydn and Bartok in the first half.  Though I'm probably being unfair to Bridge, the piece seemed to me at times little more than Edwardian period music more appropriate for use on the soundtrack of a PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation than for performance in a recital hall.