Concert review: Ariel Quartet, Alisa Weilerstein (cello)

Sometimes showmanship benefits from a little mystery – at least, that was the plan concocted by the Ariel Quartet and cellist Alisa Weilerstein for the first half of their evening. For a tableau titled Folklore, ten curated works were played as a set, with only brief pauses between them – composers and titles left unidentified in the printed programme. Only at the interval were the contents revealed, in a stack of printed inserts in the lobby.

While I recognised some of the usual suspects – a passage from Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata and the first of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet – other menu items were delightful surprises, including snippets from Bright Sheng, Tan Dun and Mieczysław Weinberg. Both David Ludwig and Matan Porat have written sets of Ladino Songs; excerpts from each ended the lineup, which included world premieres of sections nos.7 and 8 from Joseph Hallman’s these difficult times (2024).The results – by turns mournful, acerbic, jittery and stoic – made a fascinating preface for the second half of the evening: Schubert’s monumental String Quintet in C major.

After 45 minutes of invigorating ‘micro-stories’, the first few pages of the Schubert seemed like a curtain opening on one of Shakespeare’s epic historical dramas. Combining seductive tone with carefully calibrated phrasing, the results demonstrated both focus and care with which Weilerstein and the Ariel players had plotted the journey. As listeners, we were treated to an hour of maximum drive and drama.

BRUCE HODGES