MENDELSSOHN: String Quartet in A Minor, Opus 13. Octet, Op. 20; SCHUBERT: Quartettsazt in C Minor, D. 703 – Afiara String Quartet (with the Alexander String Quartet in Octet) – Foghorn Classics CD1995, 68:46 [Distr. by Allegro] *****:
The young award-winning Afiaras play Mendelssohn’s A Minor Quartet like compassionate angels. Their phrasing is broad and yet their tone is ineffably sweet because of the tone pattern they feature. all clearly defined, the violins like spun sugar on top, the viola with a prominent midrange croon and the cello during soft things down low, never butting in on the show.
Towards the end of Schubert’s quaintly-named Quartettsatz I started wondering what Mendelssohn’s Octet, rounding out the disc, would sound like when the Afiaras were joined by their mentors the Alexander String Quartet about whom I recently wrote in Strings Magazine.
When the Octet starts, there is both more forward motion and less volume, a hush seems to fall over the music; it makes the crescendo of sound at I/330 all the more exhilarating. And the music making is more complete. By the time you’re at I/1010 and all the feeling has been drenched out of you, the ensemble comforts and raises you with Mendelssohn unexpected emerging out of the gloom and into the sunlight. It’s one of the great moments in all of classical music. Why Mendelssohn, who is rich in those moments, is currently being out of favor is strange to see.
In fact, hearing these performances again raises the question that was raised often during Mendelssohn’s 200th year of birth in 2009, how great a composer was he, questions which were mostly answered negatively or cautiously. All I can think of is if greatness in a composer could be described as "a protean nature committed to an intense musical relationship is for many a challenging but ultimately a deeply meaningful experience," then Mendelssohn qualifies.
The sound, recorded at St. Stephen’s Church in the northern California paradise of Belvedere, the warm, slightly remote sound occasionally intensifies to a hallucinogenic dimensionality that probably comes from the care with which the engineers positioned their microphones and the angelic patience of the volume engineer to trust that the intimate details of the Alexander’s deeply treasured Egger Quartet of instruments the team was hearing live would be accurately produced in the final release. The liner notes are wise and entertaining.
In all aspects, therefore, a CD not to be missed.
– Laurence Vittes
