Quartet in E flat D87 - Schubert
Quartet No 1 - Gerald Barry
Quartet in B flat Op 130 (with Grosse Fuge) - Beethoven
The Yggdrasil String Quartet was formed in Stockholm in 1990. The group's first Irish tour, courtesy of the Music Network, began at the Coach House in Dublin Castle on Friday.
The first impression to come from their playing of Schubert's early E flat Quartet was of an old-fashioned lightness - lightness both of tone and of vibrato. And with it came a generously old-world approach to portamento, too.
The playing during the first half of the programme rarely sounded entirely settled. There was a certain untidiness of ensemble and occasionally of intonation. The opening of Gerald Barry's First Quartet, an extended passage of ethereal harmonics, had an unearthly delicacy, but was also somewhat tentative. They imbued this work with a feeling of fragility that seemed excessive. The necessary suggestiveness could have been achieved with a firmer touch.
Beethoven's late Quartet in B flat found them in altogether more solid form after the interval. Here the absence of pointmaking was a consistent pleasure. The Yggdrasils played as if, on every point, Beethoven was to be trusted.
Tours to New Ross tomorrow, to Tralee on Wednesday, to Carrick-on-Shannon on Friday, to Letterkenny on Saturday and to Portlaoise on Sunday. For information phone 01-6719429
