Alke Quartet

This programme of beautiful, frenetic energy opened with Mendelssohn’s last quartet, in F minor, written in grief at the death of his sister Fanny. The tension was maintained in Schubert’s edgy Quartettsatz, the single movement masterpiece that thankfully nobody else has dared to ‘complete’. It prepared us for the climax, Janácek’s dramatic first quartet, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’, based on Tolstoy’s novella about savage jealousy. That’s a lot to ask of chamber music but the Alke Quartet is not afraid of expressing the pain, the scratchy neurotic sounds and weird sul ponticello harmonics that Janácek demands. Their masterly playing still sounds beautiful.

Theatre Royal, Brighton, 12 May 2017
Rating:
Andrew Connal