Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Friday, March 27, 2026
concert review: Brentano Quartet
The icon on the DW and LJ versions of this post is a caricature of Haydn, and for once that's really appropriate, for this concert consisted of 3.5 Haydn string quartets. The 0.5 was his final quartet, which he was only able to half-finish. This turned out to be about 1.0 more Haydn quartets than I wanted to hear in one concert, and I grew itchy during the last one. This was a gentle and dignified interpretation of Haydn, without much that was witty - though Haydn often demands a witty approach - and not much more that was energetic, though there was some zip in a few places, notably the finale of Op. 20/4. And that's about all I have to say about a pleasant but unexciting concert. I wonder if I'd have been able to come up with more if I'd been assigned to review it and had my close-listening ears on, though that would require that I have taken a caffeine pill to be more alert, and those are off the menu for me right now for physical pill-swallowing reasons. I fear my fine discernment may be atrophying, or at least I'm experiencing fewer opportunities to exercise it.
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I was there, as were a bunch of compadres from the SLSQ summer program. As you probably know, the SLSQ were huge Haydn champions and most of us play a lot of string quartets and a lot of Haydn – so for us it was a treat to be able to see a quartet of Brentano's caliber play an all-Haydn full program. (Many of us have been coached by at least one member of the Brentano over the years, so we're also partisan.) Possibly our deep familiarity with both the principals and the music made it more interesting to us? Personally I spent a lot of time scrutinizing what Mark Steinberg was doing with his bow, grooving with the weirdness they found in the Adagio of Opus 54/2, and marveling at Nina Lee's sang froid in the exposed cello lines of the last movement of that quartet. But I could see how It wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea. They're playing a different program in a few weeks in Bing.
ReplyDeleteNot "everyone's cup of tea"? I liked it just fine and enjoyed the performance. I just didn't have a deep artistic response to it, as I expect from a superior performance. That's definitely my fault, but it's not a matter of taste.
DeleteSorry, didn't mean to imply that you didn't enjoy it – I was also reacting to the size of the audience, which was disappointing. There's a lot going on these days, concert-wise. But I also think an all-Haydn program caters to a certain brand of chamber music geek and maybe there just aren't as many of us as they'd hoped.
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