LF 26: Brahms & Schoenberg Sextets

Gladsmuir Parish Church 19/9/26

Consone Quartet; Francesca Gilbert (viola), Alexander Rolton (cello)

The congenial intimate ambience of Gladsmuir’s Parish Church played host to the morning concert of 19th September at this year’s Lammermuir Festival. The period instrument Consone Quartet, their revelatory reading of the Schubert A-minor from the previous afternoon still fresh in my mind, were joined by two like-minded friends, violist Francesca Gilbert and cellist Alexander Rolton, for a programme of two very different romantic masterpieces for string sextet, Brahms’ 1860 String Sextet No 1 in B flat major Op. 18, followed after an interval by Schoenberg’s 1899 ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (Transfigured Night). The printed programme showed the performance order the other way around but, as Francesca Gilbert said in her opening remarks, “nothing can follow the Schoenberg”. The guests took the “second” parts. The cellists played from paper music; the others from tablets.

I’ve never made a secret of my love of Brahms’ chamber music, which dates back to my early teens. I was already switched on to it when I first heard the Sextet No.1, already knowing and loving the B-flat Quartet No.3 and the Clarinet Quintet. But the sextet, to me, seemed next-level, bursting with creative freedom and expressive energy. With hindsight, I know now that what I was admiring was a youthful Brahms untrammelled by the shadow of Beethoven in a genre not associated with the master, while even his first finished quartet, for exactly that reason (the unattainable perfection of Beethoven’s late quartets) was a full 13 years later, and he had to come out of retirement to write the Clarinet Quintet. The First Sextet still holds that place in my esteem. The real epiphany, the piano trios, was later. But that’s another story.

The enrichment of the tenor and bass lines that comes from having an additional viola and cello opens up opportunities for wallowing in rich soupy romantic textures, harmony and counterpoint and, Gott sei Dank, Brahms exploits them without too much turgidity. Instead, for the most part, there is fervour, youthful urgency and a sense of irrepressible positivity. The prospect of hearing that revealed, couched in glorious tone I had heard the previous afternoon, had me keen with anticipation. I was not disappointed. George Ross’s cello sang the sunny first theme and the rich warm ensemble texture embraced it and carried us through at least two more, equally inventive, engaging and radiant. The exposition has a few reaching surges of emotion and we got to experience them again as the repeat was honoured. The restless key exploration of the development presented new facets of the same material with some more wavelike surges. New heights of ecstasy were attained in the recapitulation, subsiding to the brief, capricious pizzicato coda, with its emphatic arco cadence. Fabulous. The ‘Andante, ma moderato’ is a D-minor theme-and-variations, still a great favourite of mine. First viola introduced the theme in two sections, repeated by first violin. The first variation started with ornate arpeggiation on the cello with emphatic chords, but everybody joined in, in the second section tossing the material from one to another. In the next variation, urgent declamatory triplets in the violins relented to wistful tenderness for the second part of each section. In the third variation, swirling cellos underscored the fragmented theme, yet every element was still present. The fourth, in D-major, transformed the melody to an impassioned but dignified declaration of love. The fifth, my favourite, still in D-major, answered with another lovesong, high in the register of the first viola, the tender song ornamented by ethereal glowing figures high in the two violins. Exquisite. First cello reprised the theme under pizzicato ornamentation, the hint of a capricious “Scotch snap” guiding the afterglow to a calm Tierce de Picardie. The Scherzo, a charming playful Ländler, has a more hectic abandoned Trio, whose mood in turn fires the high-octane Coda. Delightful. The Finale is a genial leisurely rondo, its lyrical theme first sung by first cello and repeated by first violin. The ingeniously-wrought episodes reveal new material unpacked by exploring rhythmic, harmonic or melodic details. The thrilling Coda is one such: an accompanying figure is grabbed by first viola, who sets off at an accelerating sprint, joined by the others in a hectic dash to the gleeful finish. Fabulous. I was reminded how much I love this work, by six consummate artists who clearly feel the same way about it.

“Schoenberg before he was Schoenberg” may seem a silly and trivialising description of his youthful Late Romanticism, but I intend it as a compliment. ‘Transfigured Night’ (1899) is really a symphonic poem, but scored for the same instrumentation as the Brahms sextet, exploiting the same sonorities but with late Brahms textures, Wagnerian musical picture-painting, and more daring harmony, influenced by that of Richard Strauss (‘Death and Transfiguration’ was 1890) but surpassing him in new horizons of inventiveness. This was my first ever live hearing of the original sextet version, my two previous live outings having been the string orchestra arrangement (which is fabulous but, to my ears, actually less intense). The underlying narrative comes from a symbolist poem by Dehmel. A couple walk through a dark wood on a moonlit night. She reveals that she is pregnant with another man’s child; he is silent. When she looks up, moonlight bathes her in radiance. When he speaks, it is to affirm his devotion to her, their relationship, and to her unborn child – they will raise it together in love. The music, therefore, is programmatic but, to be honest, just as involving without a storyline. Second viola and second cello established a slow tread; the slow melodic line introduced by the others was bleak, the mood unchanged for a more con moto first viola comment. A lush interlude with Brahmsian, Wagnerian and Viennese vibes dispelled the bleakness. A brief troubled exchange between second cello and first violin launched an extended turbulent anguished interlude with no harmonic resolution. When it subsided, the next section seemed to hover close to resolution, yet there was stubborn weight in the melancholy. When the major chord came, it was radiant and the mood changed completely. First cello sang a Wagnerian hymnlike melody, which grew into a tutti with the lushest harmonies, never absent from this point onwards. A muted section glowed idyllically. A more impassioned section recalled ‘Tristan und Isolde’. With mutes back on, the blissful afterglow was deliciously prolonged. A committed and overwhelmingly revelatory performance of Schoenberg’s masterpiece, then, to which I willingly surrendered. I don’t remember much of the drive home.

Weblink: https://www.lammermuirfestival.co.uk/event/brahms-and-schoenberg-sextets/