Pavel Haas Quartet

To the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday to hear the new to us Pavel Haas quartet. Schnittke Quartet No. 3, Shostakovitch Quartet No. 8 Op. 110 and Beethoven Quartet Op. 120 with Grosse Fuge Op. 133 as its finale. This last seeming to be more or less mandatory these days, fair enough as the Grosse Fuge is quite something. But the other finale is not too bad either, is nothing like so large and grand and would sometimes fit in better - though not particularly this time. First outing for us of the Grosse Fuge for nearly three years, since May 2010 when we heard the Takács Quartet do it (see May 15th in the other place. I see that I was not so precious about putting in the accents in those days).

I think my father used to claim that the Grosse Fuge was the most important single work in the classical canon. I have no idea how many times he heard it live; it cannot have been many during my time. But he did have a good gramophone, at least it was good in its day, the predecessor of which was a wind up affair in a oak veneer box about two feet square and nine inches high, with a socking great papier-mâché horn sticking out of the back. Shaped a bit like a buffalo horn, maybe four or five feet of it. A horn which had, in its day, entertained entertainment starved servicemen during the second world war. The needles were a bit of a palaver as they were supposed to be made from thorns taken from particular kinds of trees: it was much easier to get stainless steel needles but they were frowned on as they did so much damage to the discs (don't suppose they were made of vinyl at that time). There was also a pencil sharpener like thing to go with the needles. Whole shebang shipped off to a connaisseur in Belfast at some point.

Back at the Wigmore, apart from the music there were three points worth a mention. First, the sitting order was first violin, second violin, cello, viola rather than the far more usual first violin, second violin, viola, cello. Didn't make any difference to me. Second, the first violin lost her E strung during the third movement of the Schnittke. The quartet retired back stage while she fixed it, fixing presumably being followed by tuning everything back into line. Do you have to play a string for a bit to break it in, like a horse or a car? Third, the chap behind us was commenting to his partner about the age of the audience. Average must have been more than 50, which is a lot better than the Dorking Halls where it must be touching 70, but it is still a reasonable worry. There seem to be plenty of young musicians out there but for how long will there be the audiences to support them? The Wigmore is still going strong, but the classical output of the South Bank has massively reduced over recent years.

The programme notes suggested that the Schnittke was a musicians' piece. Full of quotations and twiddles which only a musician would notice, let alone appreciate. But rather to our surprise we rather liked it. Shostakovitch and Beethoven as good as expected, although I have to confess to flagging a little during the middle of the Grosse Fuge, despite having taken a siesta in the afternoon. Nor was I convinced by the way that the programme notes tried to force political content into the Shostakovivh; OK there might be a bit of that but the thing is music not propaganda.

I liked the quartet's sound. They did not play noisily when this was not called for - a common fault of young players - and they played with plenty of control. I would only quarrel with the occasional harsh, coarse sounding notes from the viola and from the cello.