ligeti quartet at saint stephen’s…

A quite extraordinary evening yesterday at Saint Stephen’s, Bristol… a concert by a string quartet who are at the forefront of modern and contemporary music since their formation in 2010. I hadn’t come across their music before last night, but was aware (from the Ligeti Quartet website) that they’d “established a reputation as one of the UK’s leading ensembles, breaking new ground through innovative programming and championing of today’s most exciting composers and artists”.
They didn’t disappoint!
The evening featured works from JS Bach (with arrangements by Harrison Birtwistle, born 1934); Sofia Gubaidulina, b 1931; Igor Stravinsky; Anton Webern; Stef Conner, b 1983; Arthur Keegan-Bole, b 1986; George Nicholson, b 1949; and Georg Friedrich Haas, b 1953.

I have to say, they were pretty amazing – stunning musicianship (both individually and collectively), avant-garde, edgy, passionate… playing complex works which required huge trust between each musician and yet demanded confidence and flair to pull it off effectively.

The Quartet have played landmark venues across the world, including Carnegie Hall, Curtis Institute, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Barbican Hall and Kings Place (as well as a fishing boat, theatres and pubs!).
What I particularly love about this young group of highly-talented musicians is that they are themselves passionate about supporting emerging composers and taking new music to diverse audiences – they’ve commissioned many new works and have collaborated with artists from all types of musical backgrounds.

The concert’s final piece (String Quartet no.2, 1998 by Haas) was particularly remarkable. The programme notes (which I didn’t read fully until after the performance) give an indication of the composer’s intentions: “Haas is one of the best known composers of ‘spectral’ music – music which expands the spectrum of sound that exists inside one pitch… performers and listeners are invited to explore the space between familiar sounds and more unfamiliar, almost alien textures… all at once we hear a juxtaposition of perfectly pure resonances and more abrasive microtonal inflections”.
All I can say is that the resulting performance was something exceptional – I’d certainly never heard anything quite like it… incredibly impressive.
A VERY special evening.
PS: Ligeti Quartet comprises: Mandhira de Saram (violin 1), Patrick Dawkins (violin 2), Richard Jones (viola) and Val Welbanks (cello) – they’re graduates from the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music and the University of Oxford.
Photo: credit: Cathy Pyle (note: I didn’t take any of my own photographs last night – there was a young photographer ‘in action’ and I certainly didn’t want to tread on his toes!).