In NY farewell, Hagen Quartet brings Salzburg finesse to Haydn and Schumann
To understand how the string quartet became such a core genre of classical music, it helps to go back to its country of origin, Austria, and the composer who launched it on its brilliant career, Franz Joseph Haydn.
The Salzburg-based Hagen Quartet served a generous helping of Haydn at the 92nd St. Y Tuesday night, along with a young upstart named Robert Schumann, in what was billed as their last New York appearance. (The Hagens have announced the quartet will retire after next season.)
The ensemble, which was formed 43 years ago by four Salzburger siblings and continues as three siblings and a friend, is advantaged in this repertoire by both genetics and geography, and it showed in the polish and insight of their playing.
The publication of three quartets as Haydn’s Op. 54 in 1788 found the composer at about the midpoint of his development of the genre, as the first violin’s leading role was giving ground to the independent voices of its three partners.
Performing two works from that opus, first fiddler Lukas Hagen often sparkled with rapid scales and filigree and a silvery cantabile, but the other three—second violinist Rainer Schmidt, violist Veronika Hagen and cellist Clemens Hagen—also had plenty to say about it.
For example, in the zesty Allegro con brio that opens the Quartet Op. 54, no. 1 in G major, Lukas’s lively theme was driven by a drumbeat of repeated notes in Clemens’s cello, and the development featured an explosion of fast passages for all four players. In contrast, the hesitant progress of the ensuing Allegretto had all four players seemingly breathing together as they shaped the brief phrases.
Though also marked Allegretto, the Menuetto could hardly have been more different in character, with its bold, even gypsy-tinged theme, and a trio that was literally that, as the first violin dropped out and the other three players continued on in a gentler mood. The entire ensemble displayed virtuosity in the Presto finale’s fast scales and wittily toyed with its two-note upbeat, a favorite Haydn ploy.
Bowing together in impeccably tuned chords at the beginning of the Quartet in E major, Op. 54, no. 3, the Hagens revealed the rich yet transparent sonority that helped make the quartet the king of chamber genres. In their smooth execution, the swirling tendrils of sixteenth notes sprouted easily from the movement’s long lines.
The Largo cantabile stepped along in a slow four-to-a-bar under the first violin’s ornate soprano solo; the ensemble subtly maintained the feeling of a steady pulse through the movement’s many pauses. The vigorous Menuetto was driven by Scotch-snap rhythms and emphatic unison passages, only slightly softened in the minor-key trio.
Haydn the tease returned in the Presto finale, a bubbling concoction of false starts, sudden pauses, and the most brilliant violin writing of the night. The smooth Salzburgers carried it off without a hair out of place.
Robert Schumann, that poet of songs and piano miniatures, was in his early 30s when, in the summer of 1842, he assigned himself a rigorous course of study in the fugues of Bach and the quartets of Haydn and Mozart. The three quartets from that summer blended his new skills in counterpoint with a Romantic sensibility that loved jokes and a fine tune.
On Tuesday, Schumann’s Quartet in A major, Op. 41, no. 3 opened with a Haydn-style hesitant introduction, but soon the first violin was spinning out a graceful melody over a throbbing, offbeat background. A sighing two-note motive echoed throughout the texture, energized by surging viola and cello. A version of that motive also headed the theme of the ensuing Assai agitato, a set of four variations and coda, each vividly characterized by the Hagens.
The Adagio molto brought back the song composer, now imaginatively using the quartet medium in smooth tutti phrases, building in layers to a sonorous forte, conversing with subtle portamento slides, and singing sweetly over pizzicato accompaniment.
The Rondo finale danced in a dotted rhythm and hit folk-style offbeat accents in a way that seemed to anticipate Dvořák. The group smartly articulated a scampering episode and kept the dotted beat going through whimsical excursions by the first violin, until a flurry of triplets brought the movement to a brisk close.
The quartet’s lively, polished performance drew warm applause, to which the group responded with an encore, a first tender, then full-throated performance of the Andante cantabile from Mozart’s Quartet in G major, K. 387.
The 92nd Street Y presents violinist Midori and pianist Özgür Aydin in music by Brahms, Ravel and others, 2:00 p.m. March 9. 92ny.org
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