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György Ligeti - String Quartet No.1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’ [1953-5}

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György Ligeti - String Quartet No.1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’ [1953-5}

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In the sixties, Ligeti prohibited performances of this work along with other works from his Hungarian period. He fled Hungary in 1956 and considered these works too old-fashioned for the new Darmstadt-Cologne influenced composer. The Quartet was written in 1953-4 and was intended for his bottom drawer, as public performance of such a work in the Hungary of that time was impossible. The communist dictatorship was still in control and the only permitted music was Socialist Realism, a cheap kind of art aimed at the masses and designed to promote prescribed political propaganda. The internal logic of this was so dislocated that although Bartók was the great national hero-composer, most of his works were banned. The only Bartók works that could be performed were his conciliatory, non-dissonant works like the Concerto for Orchestra and the Third Piano Concerto. So in Budapest there arose a culture of closed rooms in which most non-conformist artists opted for inner emigration. The first performance of this Quartet eventually took place in Vienna in 1958.

Inspiration came from studying the scores of Bartók’s third and fourth quartets and Berg’s Lyric Suite – no chance of hearing such dissonant works performed in Hungary at that time – and from the classical model of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. From Bartók come the chromatically intense melodic and harmonic language and the textural contrasts, from Ligeti himself the explosive and disruptive forces that threaten to tear the fabric apart. Mind you the Quartet was submitted for the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition in 1955 and was considered too conventional even to be short-listed.

The Quartet is presented as a single movement of almost symphonic dimensions, ostensibly in many different motivically linked sections, that can also be seen as a four-movement structure. There is a ternary exposition that opposes three contrasting presentations of the germinal four-note motif, grazioso, capriccioso and mesto in Ligeti’s typically brutal manner before resolving them in an exhilarating Presto. This accelerates to prestissimo from which mysterious nocturnal tremolos emerge later accompanied by a warm chordal chorale, Andante tranquillo, the equivalent of a slow movement, that fades to silence before the Tempo di Valse. This functions like a scherzo before the light-hearted rondo-style finale beginning with Allegretto, un poco giovale. This presents us with a kaleidoscope of special effects including a wild Prestissimo. The final section presents the original four-note motif like a cantus firmus over a whirring fabric of glissando harmonics.  Francis Humphrys

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Deirdre Mckay - mr shah stares to the heavens [2012 rev.2015]

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Deirdre Mckay - mr shah stares to the heavens [2012 rev.2015]

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Physicists, who know things, tell us that it is very, very quiet in space - space, being an almost perfect vacuum, is not so well equipped to transmit sound. Residency on planet earth offers the astonishing and magical luxury of sound.

Contemplating the vast quietude of space, I thought of Mr Shah, a Welsh astrophotographer, who - at the more dedicated end of the space-curious spectrum - spends his evenings exploring space through a telescope in his garden shed.

Through his window to the universe, he has created photographs of star clusters, light years from earth, rivalling images taken from the £2.5 billion Hubble telescope.

Night after night, in solitude, staring into vast, soundless space.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet in C major K.465 'Dissonance' [1785] 

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet in C major K.465 'Dissonance' [1785] 

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The C major Quartet is the last of the series of the six quartets that Mozart dedicated to his great friend and mentor Joseph Haydn, a series of quartets that Mozart himself described as these six children of mine, the fruit of long and laborious endeavour.

The Dissonance Quartet is so named on account of the slow introduction to the opening Allegro. The harmonic structure of the texture of the opening bars - a chromatically descending bass - is not extraordinary even in the context of the eighteenth century, but Mozart uses a series of false relations in the first eight bars to blur the tonality and to generate tension about how he will untangle the deliberately tangled skein. Like Wagner's Tristan chord, these few notes have been the cause of much erudite and impassioned debate - indeed many early performers even corrected what they thought were Mozart's mistakes. The Allegro when it arrives is of crystalline beauty, clear in structure and shining with joy. The only darkness amidst this light-filled music comes in the development when the cello seems to be dragging us back to the tensions of the opening introduction.

The Andante cantabile is one of Mozart's most intensely beautiful creations. Perhaps its most affecting inspiration is a sighing figure that is passed magically amongst the four instruments. As the movement progresses the music is transformed from gentle beauty into a profundity that no words can reflect.

Inevitably the Minuet must bring us back to ground level with a combination of earthiness and spirited energy. The Trio is led even more energetically by the first violin with some neat interjections by the cello near the end. The finale is clearly written in homage to Haydn as it uses several techniques pioneered by him, such as the sudden rests in the main theme used to build up tension. The second theme has a tendency to burst out into a cascade of brilliant semiquaver runs followed by an uneasy dream-like episode. Another trick of Papa Haydn's was the false entry of the recapitulation, which Mozart tries three times before eventually finding the correct key. So does the youthful master make obeisance to his mentor, while we listen transfixed.  Francis Humphrys

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Formed in 2013, the Ficino Ensemble has been committed to exploring the vast chamber music repertoire and presenting thoughtfully programmed concerts. The group regularly performs as a string quartet, including annual tours for the National String Quartet Foundation, and the addition of winds and percussion gives the possibility of playing large-scale chamber works. The members share a dedicated approach to contemporary music and have been invited to play as part of Moving on Music in Belfast, where they performed works by John Buckley, Anselm McDonnell and Ian Wilson. In 2019 they collaborated with several composers of the Irish Composers Collective, where the musicians worked on pieces with the composers and premiered several new works for flute, harp and viola. Ficino Ensemble was recently joined by the Con Tempo String Quartet in a performance of works by Brahms, Mendelssohn and Enescu as part of the Dublin Enescu Festival. In 2018 they performed a concert with Olwen Fouéré as part of MusicTown in Dublin, which included a performance of Thomas Ades’ Four Quarters and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 132. Their debut recording Winter, released on the Ergodos record label, has received critical acclaim and has put them at the forefront of the Irish chamber music scene. Ficino Ensemble takes the name from Marsilio Ficino, the Renaissance philosopher who regarded music as a “contemplation of the divine”. ficinoensemble.com