Quartet in C K465 - Mozart
Grosse Fuge Op.133 - Beethoven
A Dream of Thaw - Stephen Gardner
String Quartet - Debussy
The Parisii String Quartet gave an outstanding concert yesterday afternoon at the Coach House in Dublin Castle.
It was the third concert in a Music Network tour taking the same programme to 12 venues around Ireland. (Bantry and Knocktopher were on the two preceding days.)
Top-flight music played by top-flight musicians represents money well-spent, both by the public purse and by Music Network's sponsors, ESB.
The Parisii Quartet was formed in 1984 and was in residence during the 1996 West Cork Chamber Music Festival. The technique, ensemble and unanimity of these French musicians make comment seem superfluous.
One can enjoy the music and the insight of players who have the independence to identify problems in the printed source of Debussy's String Quartet, who seek to solve them by loo king at the original manuscript and who play the slow movement using the large mutes of the composer's day. What a beautiful, evenly veiled sound.
I find it hard to imagine a more persuasive performance of A Dream of Thaw, an early work by Belfast-born (1958) Stephen Gardner. The animated, characterful playing was a world away from the beat-counting approach all-too-common in performances of modern music.
Such superlative timing typified the concert, including a truly convincing performance of the quartet repertoire's Gordian Knot, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge Op. 133.
Best of all was Debussy's String Quartet. I have never heard a concert in which this music's wide-ranging, fin-de-siecle intensity was so subtly and profoundly explored.
The Parisii Quartet is at Castlebar tonight, Skerries, Wednesday; Newtownards on Thursday; Armagh on Friday, Carlingford (February 8th), Emo (9th), Listowel (10th), Omagh (12th) and Portstewart (13th)
