Quatuor Molinari: Reconstruction and Renewal in Continuity

Dedicated to the late sociologist Guy Rocher, just a few days after the national funeral in which Quatuor Molinari: Reconstruction and Renewal in Continuity participated, this first concert of the ensemble’s season was given in a context of reconstruction and renewal in continuity.

Quatuor III (1994), for string quartet (Op. 30) by the late Bulgarian composer (naturalized French) André Boucourechliev (1925-1997). The piece comprises 6 different sections without a transition marked by a pause, different playing modes are put forward, the composer had bet on an open form where four randomly superimposed voices completed the framework. It starts with long and calm melodic lines with the bow, things then get more complicated, different motifs follow one another and overlap, an atonal explosion occurs, calm returns, the sounds become tenuous, crystalline, and bow strokes resume, and so on. This is a solid work for its time but which blends into the aesthetics of this same period, without really standing out from it.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1949 and premiered in 1953, coinciding with Stalin’s death, which was certainly not bad news for the composer, who had to live dangerously with his own modernity throughout the authoritarian leader’s reign.

This quartet was composed after the regime had dismissed him from his teaching position and banned the distribution of his modern works. Divided into 4 movements, was quartet no. 4 written out of fear of being too bold? Perhaps… because it seems that the modern components of the quartet are relatively tenuous, and the parts including popular or folkloric references (so dear to the Stalinist regime) often outweigh the modern materials of the work. In short, this “ambivalent” quartet remains excellent even if it is not my favorite of Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets, nevertheless very well performed by Molinari.

In the context of this concert, we will find more vigor and more adventure in this early work, Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 1, inspired by an impossible love with the violinist Stefi Geyer, who inspired the piece. Constructed in 3 movements when the composer was only 27 years old, this visionary quartet carries the passion and the foundations of his own modernity, embodying his transition from previous eras to his own. The performance of Molinari seemed to me the best of this evening, the cohesion and eloquence of the individual and collective playing suggested an excellent season for this renewed formation.

Violist and chamber musician Cynthia Blanchon was indeed welcomed to Quatuor Molinari on Tuesday. The musician’s introduction was accompanied by the announcement of the revival of the complete 15 Shostakovich string quartets, which, let’s remember, had been canceled at the last minute last spring, due to the defection of Frédéric Lambert due to illness. From one work to the next, we saw the violist take her ease with the quartet, in all aspects of her playing. Establishing her personality as a performer within such an ensemble is not done with the snap of a finger, it goes without saying.