|
High Standards
BILL NEWMAN listens to
various artists at London's Wigmore Hall
Borodin Quartet,
Saturday 3 February 2011
This is the first occasion where I have enjoyed listening to a different combination of players [Ruben Aharonian, violin, Andrei Abramenkov, violin, Igor Naidin, viola and Vladimir Balshin, cello]. The second violinist is the only one I still remember from an interview I endeavoured to carry through a few years back without success, due to the language barrier, but their tonal beauties remain very much the same. The founder-member cellist has since passed on, but a new kind of urgency has now entered the performing scene which adds fresh drama and colours to their interpretation.
Nikolai Myaskovsky, composer of some twenty-seven symphonies, had decided to switch his affiliations towards the String Quartet at a suitable point in his compositional career. The completion of his Tenth Symphony, therefore marks the start of his Quartet No 1, although strain of hard work, generally, was to bring about his comparatively early death from cancer at the age of sixty-nine...
Copyright © 24 February 2011
Bill Newman,
Edgware UK
|
