Elias String Quartet in Hong Kong

It's been a long time since I heard a string quartet in concert or at home. Last night I did so.  Called The Elias String Quartet, after Mendelssohn's Oratorio Elijah, the quartet ( consisting of Sara Bitlloch, violin, Donald Grant, violin, Martin Saving, viola and Marie Bitlloch, cello, originally from France, England and Sweden) first started life in Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music and has since won the BBC's Music Magazine Newcomer Award for their recordings of Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schubert and having also recorded Benjamin Britten's String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 and his Three Divertimenti.

Last night's programme varied from the classical Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 in C , K465 (Dissonance) to the more contemporary Benjamin Britten's String Quartet No. 3 in G, Op 94 and then the Russian Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 in E minor From My Life.

After what I imagine was some initial hitches at the start of the first movement of  Mozart's Dissonance, they quickly warmed up. As in all quartets, their sound was intimate. The piece was rather unusual in that it sounded quite contemporary because of the initial dissonance in the first movement. It almost as if Mozart had suddenly turned self-conscious and reflected upon his own music. It's a piece very very different from the Mozart of the operas and his symphonies which are usually much more light hearted but Mozart could not have remained contemplative for long and the piece ended in truly Mozart-like with joy.

The second piece by Britten, a five movement piece: Duets: with moderate movement, Ostinato: very fast, Solo: very calm, Burlesque: Fast con fuoco, Recitative and Passaglia: Slow-Slowly moving, was commissioned by the Amadeus Quartet in 1975. According to the Programme Notes, the heart of the piece is the fifth movement, the Recitative and Passaglia, which is based on a medieval/baroque form which allows plenty of room for repetition and variation. The music has a very contemporary feel. It sounded as if the various players were playing independently of each other and yet somehow they would come together in some parts in their odd way, rather as in jazz. The second movement was much more vigorous with plenty of plucking of the strings. The third was filled with conversation between the violin. You can feel the restlessness of the music and Britten's desire to play around and experiment with the various possibilities of sound effects which you can get from the various instruments.

The last piece by Smetana, in Allegro vivo appassionato, Allegro moderato a la Polka, Largo sostenuto and Vivace. Written in 1876, when Smetana was going deaf with the intention of using it as an autobiography of his own life, the first movement to describe his youthful yearning for romance and art, the second his youthful joy, the third the happiness of his first love, the fourth his national roots and the last movement the tragedy of his deafness with reminiscence of happier times.

The members of the quartet all look very young yet, for their age, they have done very well. Despite the initial tense expressions on their faces and bodies, once they got into the music, they allowed the music to take over. I could not but feel somehow that they could have done with a little more abandon. But it might not be easy, especially with second piece. Whatever the case may be, I think they are a promising group. In passing, I rather like the violinist's and the cellist's flimsy grey shirt mottled with small black flowers the rounded triangles fomred by the underfold of which fluttered softly a second or two after the elbow movements of their owners in tiny undulations, like the translucent wings of some ethereal butterflies, as they bowed their respective instruments. Somehow it made their music more human on the rather bare fir parquet floors cirss-crossed with rays of green light from the ceiling of the Jockey club amphitheatre of the Centre of Performing Arts in Wanchai. Of the three pieces they played, I like the first and third better than Britten's, especially the very folksy piece of Smetana's which exudes a wonderful sense of the  youthful  joie de vivre he still recalls but also with a little loss of hope.