Fyrish String Quartet 'shapeshift' across musical worlds for their afternoon recital in Cromarty
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REVIEW
The Fyrish String Quartet
The Stables, Cromarty
Sunday, May 29
The Stables in Cromarty proved the ideal setting for a Sunday afternoon recital by the Fyrish String Quartet promoted by Cromarty Arts Trust.
Its famously focussed acoustic added considerably to the intensity of the playing, while its intimacy gave the impression the musicians were playing just for you.
They opened with a delightfully crisp account of the fourth of Haydn’s six op 76 Quartets, often referred to as the ‘Erdödy’ Quartets after their aristocratic Hungarian sponsor.
By 1789 Haydn was at the height of his skills as a quartet writer, and the fourth Quartet is a masterclass in structural perfection and musical imagination. Haydn’s famous wit is never far away – the Ländler-style Menuetto is a feast of thigh-slapping rusticality.
The ensemble brought a wonderful energy and spontaneity to their interpretation of this music, as well as an impressive technical assurance, unerringly finding the humour but also moments of profound contemplation in Haydn’s rich score.
It was remarkable to watch violinists Joe Hodson and Emma Donald metamorphose into ‘twa fiddlers’ for the three short items of traditional music items, which rounded off part one.
Raised in the Scots fiddle tradition, the pair seemed transformed, leading the ensemble in utterly idiomatic performances of the Danish Five Sheep, Four Goats and the Burns’ staples Flow Gently Sweet Afton and Ae Fond Kiss, the first in an arrangement by the Danish Quartet, the other two beautifully set for the group by their cellist Tim Cais – the second of these, the more adventurous and the more successful, brought a suitable piquancy to the harmonisation.
In a masterstroke of programming, the group opened their second half with a sublime short piece by James MacMillan. Momento hauntingly explored the various tessituras of the instruments, including a diaphanous episode relying on high harmonics.
Exquisitely played by the Quartet, this proved the perfect preparation for Mendelssohn’s tragic op 80 Quartet in F-minor. Composed in 1847 in the wake of a double bereavement, the piece is a restless, haunted, disturbing work, which tests the technical prowess and musicality of the most experienced ensembles.
The Fyrish Quartet’s reading was powerful and unsettling, and if in the finale the intonation very occasionally wobbled, this was the consequence of the passion and energy the young players were pouring into their interpretation. This was a towering performance of a notoriously challenging work, and enthusiastic and sustained applause greeted this memorable live musical experience.
The players responded by again shape-shifting to give us a toe-tapping account of a Danish Peat Dance.
It is not every group that can span the classic and traditional music worlds with such ease, and the Fyrish String Quartet have a winning formula here!
D James Ross
