The Schumann Quartet acquired a new viola player at the beginning of this year, with Veit Benedikt Hertenstein joining the three brothers who give the group its name. The change of personnel has clearly been managed smoothly; the sense of unanimity and collective purpose in this recital with the mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter was undoubtedly impressive.
The qualities of their playing, but also its shortcomings, were best demonstrated in the string quartets that framed the concert, Schumann’s Op 41 no 3 in A and Brahms’s Op 51 no 2 in A minor. In both works the ensemble was immaculate, yet the performances were utterly lacking in character. Everything was homogenised; even the personalities of the individual players merged into a corporate facelessness, emphasised by their identical blue suits. The Schumann is a work of wistful beauty, but there was no sense here of any affection for it, any more than a will to disentangle the knottier corners of the Brahms. The only objective, it seemed, was to present both works with as much dour efficiency as possible.
