Making its US debut at the freshly period-papered oval room at Gore Place rather than at the intended but shutdown Library of Congress, the UK-based Consone String Quartet impressed with strong technical and interpretive chops. The foursome’s  classically-set-up, gut-stringed instruments delivered satisfying sonorities in the 1809 Jacques-Guillaume Legrand-designed chamber in which Haydn might have felt at home when not at the Esterhazy Palace.

Boston has been a center of early music revival thought and practice ever since Arnold Dolmetsch and his cadre came to make authentic instruments in the Chickering Piano factory in 1904. And today his many artistic heirs play on authentic instruments in historically informed styles. Yet Saturday evening’s concert did not constitute a coals to Newcastle redundancy since the Consone, despite my apparently unfounded expectations, does not allow typecasting as early music types. Indeed, they play Schoenberg and contemporary music as well as the Classical-cum Romantic repertoire that cellist-impresario Guy Fishman induced them to bring to the mansion.

Nothing about their tone or demeanor suggested a less-is more (takeaway) approach. They dug in strongly and advocated for Haydn, Beethoven, and Czerny with signal attention to the sound world of each composer. Thus one could have imagined how they could have found a quite different but equally distinctive voice for moderns. These gut strings did not complain when pushed, and we never witnessed any scratchiness or vagaries of intention. Surprisingly, we heard no true ppps, but the warm ensemble, topped by Agata Daraškaite’s facile, exciting but slightly too bright first violin, cohered admirably through the rest of its well-calibrated dynamic range. In Haydn, straight tone prevailed except for light vibrato in phrase endings. By the time the Czerny arrived, romantic sensibilities took charge and the foursome applied vibrato more generally.  The group’s artistic use of portamento, that until-recently forbidden art of imitating the singing voice, sets it apart. 

Second violinist Magdalena Loth-Hill and I conversed afterwards about those many stunning slides―both individual and collective. The group has, as I expected listened to the 1928 recording of the Bohemian String Quartet (1891 – 1933), in which, Dvořák’s son-in-law Josef Suk played violin 2.  Listen HERE to the group’s account of the Dvořák “American.” Loth-Hill also explained how she could glean something about portamento from fingered 19^th-century scores. “If you see the same finger shown on two different notes connected by a slur, you cannot get from one note to another without a slide.”

Misha Donat describes the opener, Haydn’s String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 71, No.1:

The quartet opens in five thickly scored fortissimo chords, with the upper three instruments playing in double stops throughout, and the final chord, planting the music firmly in the home key, containing no fewer than ten notes. This is altogether one of Haydn’s most ebullient pieces, with the music impatiently releasing its pent-up energy even before the main subject has been allowed to run its full course. Although the initial chords stand outside the main framework of the movement they return in an altered form to round off the exposition, so that when the repeat is made they again preface the main subject. As so often with Haydn, the second subject is a variant of the first, the chief contrast in this case being one of articulation: while the first subject echoes the dry staccato of the initial series of chords, the second is gentler and more expressive, and accompanied by smooth ascending scales.

The theme of the slow movement, in siciliano-like rhythm, has the lower pair of instruments in a smooth, yearning ascent, and the first violin’s melody descending to meet them. Following a murmuring middle section that takes the music into ‘flatter’ regions, the initial melody returns, this time with its individual phrases prefaced by a grace note, like a kind of expressive glottal stop. In the closing bars, the murmuring sound of the middle section makes itself briefly felt again, before the music fades away into the distance.

The minuet shows Haydn’s wit at its most sophisticated, with the opening six-bar theme immediately restated in full, but harmonized entirely differently. Moreover, at the end, the music’s texture is inverted, so that the initial cello accompaniment now appears at the top, and the theme beneath it.

The finale is as energetic as the opening movement, with rapid repeated notes played by bouncing the bow off the string, and passages of gypsy exuberance that have syncopated inner parts and a drone-like bass line. If the central development section is unusually brief, Haydn more than makes amends by incorporating a lengthy developmental passage into the recapitulation, in a manner typical of his late style. Despite the high jinks of the piece as a whole, Haydn surprisingly allows it to draw to a pianissimo close—the only subdued ending to be found among the six ‘Salomon’ quartets.        

The Allegro immediately revealed that the Consone would take no prisoners in the Sturm und Drang, nor would they stint on the patient longing. We reveled in the fearless fire as well as the smiles and tears. We very much enjoyed the jollity of the playful and empathic imitations and took immense relief from the reliability of the intonation…even when the open strings had sagged. Sounding a bit like the Kaiser Hymn (or maybe not) the Adagio came across with perfect balance and equality of voices. Well-plotted shifts of tone included some accents that felt almost Scottish. A courtly and serene Menuetto. Allegretto preceded the almost orchestral-sounding Vivace. Indeed Loth-Hill had earlier revealed that she had played a nonet version of the piece and heard it symphonically. Its exuberance reminded me of the Spring movement from The Seasons. Here the nicely off-beat imitations came across as players charmingly flattering one another. The vivace passagework of the cellist George Ross astonished, and the quite conclusion soothed.

Beethoven transcribed his Piano Sonata in E Major op 14, No. 1 for string quartet into the much more string friendly F Major. According to Rolf Kyburz:

Beethoven was particularly proud of this arrangement, knowing that it was better than what one could have expected from “competition” (there have even been speculations that this composition was originally conceived as string quartet).

Interestingly, the first movement is annotated Allegro moderato, rather than just Allegro: a string quartet is not a grand piano, let alone an instrument from that period, such as a fortepiano by Walter or Christofori (much more agile than a modern concert grand) — hence the tempo for a string quartet should definitely be slower than in the piano version. Beethoven did not simply distribute the notes onto four voices — he also made significant changes to the course of accompanying voices, reflecting the specific characteristics of a string quartet, and the additional flexibility with having four independent voices. If you have the piano score: it is interesting to follow and see where exactly Beethoven deviates from the piano version.

The players unanimously produced all the requisite accents, swells and sfzs in the Allegro Moderato. Robed with very deep and innig expression, the Adagio, in particular, conveyed the advantages of the string quartet over the piano in singing tone. Elitsa Bogdanova’s noble expressivity was irresistible. The foursome’s grand opera take on the concluding Allegro compelled our attention with the intensity of attention to the fleet figurations.

We had chosen to attend this concert in part because it would give us our first chance to hear one of the 40 unpublished string quartets from one of our three favorite unjustly neglected composers. Carl Czerny (1791-1857), having written over 800 works, was much more than a piano pedagogue and virtuoso player. Abundant material remains to be revealed from that mentee of Beethoven and mentor of Liszt. I happen to have arranged for parts to be engraved from the manuscript of his Nonet for piano strings and winds.

Thanks to the Consone’s expert and impassioned ministrations (scads of velocity with ample heart), Czerny’s String quartet in A Minor made a tremendous impression as the group upped the expressive ante and made the room throb with passion. Edith Piaf could have sung the bittersweet Andante espressivo lament. ‘Scherzo Vivace’ certainly described the slashing attacks in the third movement, which also contained a reposeful trio section with some wonderful lilt in the cello’s pizzes. In the style of Mendelssohnian fairy music, the Finale. Quasi presto featured a compellingly mercurial violin solo. All in with wit and brilliance, the Consone delivered the goods.

Lee Eiseman is the publisher of the Intelligencer