Concert review: Chiaroscuro Quartet

Led by Alina Ibragimova, the pioneering Chiaroscuro Quartet – using gut strings and period bows – celebrates its 20th birthday next year. Its members play standing (apart, obviously, from cellist Claire Thirion), which likely improves the projection of sound, but personally I still found it difficult to adjust to the reduced immediacy and dynamic range compared to non-historically informed quartets.

That’s not to say that there was any lack of ideas or commitment. In Haydn’s Quartet op.33 no.3 (‘The Bird’) there was perky chirping and enticingly vibrato-less sustained harmonies in the first movement; and, in the Scherzo, an effective contrast between the dark, almost breathy tone of the outer sections and the spiky playfulness of the central Trio.

There is something about the Chiaroscuro’s honest, unadorned tone that highlighted the searching, unresolved qualities in Beethoven’s ‘Rasumovsky’ Quartets nos.2 and 3 – and there is clear alchemy between the players – but occasionally I missed some sheer heft.

The players’ approach made for an especially intimate Adagio to op.59 no.2 and, if the panting accompaniment at the opening of the finale might have had more bite, the Più presto coda took off at wonderfully dizzying speed.

EDWARD BHESANIA