The Week's Music...

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 926, 10 May 1957, Page 20

The Week's Music...

by

SEBASTIAN

| FASTER has passed us by without anything tremendously exciting in the musical department-except the complete absence of Stainer’s Crucifixion. Now we have the Parrenin Quartet (YC link) which, we are told, is rapidly rising to a position of eminence among European chamber groups: though its widening spheres of influence have brought us no gramophone recordings yet. I must admit that they seem to be a first-rate combination, at least as far as their synchronisation goes; for any four people to think as one is a prodigious feat in any case, and when they can agree on such an insubstantial pageant as the field of chamber music, it is little short of miraculous. Small wonder that good quartets have such a high reputation among musicians; they must sink their individualities in that of the composer, losing their identities through his music -a self-effacement that few artists can attain. As you can see, the idea inspires awe in me. This quartet being a French one, you would expect that they would be more at home with Gallic music, and so in fact it seemed, They gave Ravel’s F Major Quartet a sensitive performance, perhaps more energetic in the first

movement than one usually hears, but with a real expression-not the mawkish sentiment that often is excused under the auspices of an "espress," direction. The slow movement was a masterpiece, and the irregular rhythms of the remainder were given a rare brilliance that was convincing-though by this time I was already convinced. A little set of variations by the contemporary composer Jean-Louis Martinet employed the twelve-note method, which here was the vehicle for a closeknit piece of reasoning that in the hands of these players seemed almost capable of emotion at times. I wonder how much of the ovation that followed was for the music, and how much for the fine playing: I have my suspicions. In contrast to these were the other works; the Prokofieff Second Quartet was lively but controlled, with some lovely pizzicato effects, but to my ear it fell a little’ flat for want of variety in mood. The joyous Quartet, Op. 168, of Schubert, on the other hand, was warmly felt and delicately handled, with nuances of tone that could never be imagined by mere perusal of the score. The string quartet is certainly the perfect instrument; and this one approaches closely its own brand of perfection,