Angels and libidinous mortals

Tolstoy wrote that "music is a sensual form of refined lust"—I'll come back to that later!

Last night's concert with the Penderecki String Quartet at St Andrew's began with Schubert's Quartettsatz from an unfinished quartet and surprisingly, for this was not listed on the programme, continued with part of another movement that he'd written for the same work, the Andante. It finished in mid-phrase, what a shame! Then three other musicians joined the quartet: a harpist, flute player and clarinetist, to play two works for that combination of instruments, the famous Introduction and Allegro by Ravel, which I've loved hearing since childhood, and a brand new work by a local composer, Marjan Mozetich, called Angels in Flight, in three movements, with plenty of soaring arpeggios and tremulo to suit the subject! The composer was sitting in the audience and came up to thank the performers at the end, obviously very moved by their contribution.

After we'd taken a break in the cooler air outside the church the second half of the concert was Janacek's "Kreutzer" Quartet, interspersed with readings (from memory) from the Tolstoy novella, on which this music is based. Colin Fox, the actor telling the story, was not on stage when the quartet sat down, so we thought he wasn't appearing after all, but then he entered through a door behind us, already beginning his narration wearing a smart, cream coloured summer suit and matching fedora, as befitted the period. He sat at a card table and helped himself from a decanter of whisky, sipping it in the pauses to great effect. The story and the music is all about murderous, male jealousy, a frightening, sobering subject, but he "played it for laughs" as Chris commented, with lashes of irony, perhaps because the effect on the audience would have been too much to bear if it had been presented as sheer tragedy, or perhaps because a jealous husband comes across as rather ridiculous in any case (the man in the story doesn't feel like physically attacking his rival in his stocking feet... so stabs his wife instead). Each time the narrator came to a turning point in the tale, the quartet chimed in with a movement from the Janacek, so that we knew what the music meant! The moment when the jealous husband listens to his wife playing her Beethoven sonata with the seductive violinist was horrific, the lyrical quotation from Beethoven interrupted by violent scratchings by their bows, conveying how the cuckold felt about it. Both the words and music were full of complexities. I was strongly reminded of a similar story by Thomas Mann: Tristan. That's pretty upsetting too.