How long does it take for the Shock of the New to wear off? A couple of months? A century? How about two hundred years and still counting? Both works on the Belcea Quartet’s programme last night have been in the repertoire for a long time – Beethoven wrote his String Quartet No. 14 in 1826 while Schoenberg’s First String Quartet dates from 1905 – but neither has lost its ability to surprise and even unsettle us, as the Belceas demonstrated.
This concert marked the quartet’s 30th anniversary and there’s no better place for such a celebration than the Wigmore Hall. The choice of these two monuments of the repertoire, each lasting over 40 minutes, was both fitting and brave: even now, Schoenberg is hardly guaranteed box office. He could not have wished for more persuasive advocates. From the very opening phrases, the Belceas captured the quartet’s febrile, fiery intensity as well as its piercing lyricism. Fragments of melody emerged, only to be swept up in the music’s forward motion before reappearing transformed. Rhythms were strongly emphasised, calm moments were fleeting, but there was also an almost cheerful energy pulsing through everything: it’s a rare performance that reveals a trace of humour in Schoenberg but the Belceas found it. This was Schoenberg renewed.
