Visionary truly is the word to describe the connected artistic presence exuded on stage by the Berlin-based quartet who push the limits of conventionality in a traditional setting by removing the music stands and chairs (bar the cellist) and delve into an imaginative sound world via memory, combining bohemian repertoire with multi-genre composition of their own.
Violinists Florian Willeitner and Daniel Stoll, violist Sander Stuart and cellist Leonard Disselhorst, through innovative design and clever marketing, will leave you reimagining and questioning the make up of classical performance in the modern age. With 11 years of collaboration on the Vision String Quartet project, they’ve individually and collectively acquired the skill and maturity to deeply understand the music itself and interpret and deliver it with a heart-felt stamp.
Bloch’s Prelude, B.63 composed in 1935 is the opener, drawing on a rich melody beginning in the viola, delicately moved through the quartet. Intriguingly this piece of music, composed by a Jewish composer during the peak of prewar Nazi Germany, may have been a response to the ever-changing social and political environment in Europe, and certainly the Hebraic flavours of this prelude offer a hint of this intention. The short, five-minute work leaves the audience spellbound in a velvet soundscape before diving into the dissonance and asymmetrical rhythms of C20 composer, Bartok.
Bartok’s String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Sz. 91, written seven years prior to the Bloch opening, exhibits the contrasting styles of the 20th century showcasing how they are able to complement each other. With Bartok having recorded much of his ‘folk’ music in the villages and rural communities of Hungary and Romania, this piece really emulates the lively nature of the group as well as putting into the spotlight the sheer technical skill required to play works of this caliber which they make look so effortless. In its form and structure, the outer movements share a relationship through the use of thematic material in a very Picasso/Kandinsky sort of manner, as do the inner second and fourth movements via different means.
Where the second movement has fast chromatic runs going up and down, the fourth movement mimics these at a slower tempo with pizzicati and slightly more harmonic. As with the Bloch, the third movement has a sense of calm before the storm about it, with the melody shape-shifting through the instrumentation. The cheeky nature in which the bows are placed on the cellist’s lap in the allegretto pizzicato fourth movement draws the audience into the performance, creating a sense of familiarity with the musicians themselves, finishing with a finale chopping through chords of dissonant harmony, leaving you hanging for more.
After a short interval and time in contemplation, we are taken back to the American influence of romantic composer, Dvorak. The string quartet, No. 13 Op. 106 written in G major, connects him back to Europe with the key itself, drawing on the idea of having just returned to his second ‘home’ that year in 1895. The opening is colourful and vivacious and brings that same feeling to the audience. The second movement adagio, begins with a built up chord in E minor, evolving into the key of Eb Major. With a 3/8 time signature, it is described as one of the most beautiful slow works written by the composer. It brings us back to what we had heard in the quartet with the opening Bloch and the third movement of the Bartok.
More delicate harmonies building on one another seamlessly.
It is in these moments you gage a perspective of how this quartet listens to one another and blends their voices. The molto vivace moves into a 3/4 rondo time in the key of B minor before finishing off back in the home key of G major in a common time signature with a finale the audience relates and connects with.
Vision String Quartet finishes off with what they do differently, playing an encore of an original piece off their album, ‘Spectrum’, a ‘Samba’ composed in the lively key of D major which feels like an impromptu jam session, encompassing blues and jazz improvisational techniques. The cello representing what would otherwise be a double bass in a jazz quartet is extremely clever, paired with violins and violas turned sideways and strummed like ukes. It has the audience on a high, laughing and praising the soloists within the quartet as if it is a performance not in a concert hall, but instead in a downtown Manhattan jazz club.
Clapping between solos is a given, between classical movements is encouraged, and at times, almost a necessity.
