Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky

– about the recent Kaganovskiy Musical Evenings (KZE) –

The date and location was: November 27, 2024, 7 p.m.

Oradea, Roman Catholic Bishop's Palace (an environment reminiscent of Patachich's patronage of the arts, hosting the KZE monthly)

Show:

Mendelssohn – String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13 (1827)

Tchaikovsky – String Quartet in D major, Op. 11 (1871)

Speakers:

Ernő Kállai and Artur Kaganovskiy are first and second violins, thus with Mendelssohn, then with a change of places to Tchaikovsky (meaningfully, Artur's interpretation of the Russian composer's prime in the second part became his)

Eszter Kaganovskiy - viola

Ágnes Kállay – cello

Written by Gábor Tóth

The core of the quartet was once again the Patachich trio (they have been touring in several places recently, and I feel that their combined energies have only increased), they were joined by a former dear colleague of Artur, they know each other from Juilliard in New York... - yes, such friends visit and play music here in Várad as part of the KZE, like the current first concertmaster of the Budapest Opera House, who is also a fantastic prime-pull force for the already mature and established trio.

I start from a free association, although this is more of a feeling (or it could even be a good methodological consideration on Mendelssohn's part) – the relationship between question and answer, at the beginning and end of the wonderful Op. 13, or rather (!) 2nd quartet. And then here I don't think of Les Adieux from Beethoven, but of a piano sonata from 12 years earlier, the second movement of Op. 7. It begins with a very similar question-gesture, just like the one of the in love 18-year-old Mendelssohn, who was intellectually and emotionally incredibly precocious, with the only difference being that the slightly older, 27-year-old Beethoven also gave an answer to the anachronistically raised later Mendelssohn question within eight bars. Yes, Beethoven tried harder, he had to change residence more often, i.e. move around in contemporary Vienna, than Mendelssohn had to travel back and forth from his later German Heimat… I recommend the online book Zenebeszéd to everyone. series, Zoltán Farkas' analysis of the Mendelssohn Quartet, although fortunately the above is not mentioned there, so I did not plagiarize it - otherwise it is a captivating examination of the thematic composition of the Mendelssohn piece (also). There is no point in me adding anything more, especially after what the KZE added to Mendelssohn with its latest, even more captivating performance, and how demanding the content of their introductory program booklet for the audience was. I will nevertheless turn back to this aforementioned Beethoven sonata for the sounding Mendelssohnian opening gesture-kinship, especially because the piano there, due to its own construction, is not able to produce a crescendo from a sustained note - or is it? I once listened to Barenboim's masterclass, unfortunately I only had the opportunity on TV, but he explained the impossible, both physically and mathematically, the imaginary very convincingly and strikingly, i.e. how to create the illusion on the piano that Beethoven sometimes suggests, that from a soft note played at the beginning, the further musical process creates a crescendo, so that it does not fade away, but "rises" - there is no secret, the answer to the question posed in the first place is already in the question itself. Now, turning back, I can say about the Mendelssohn journey shown in four movements during the KZE that the composer's dramaturgy from this question to the final answer was explored in an extraordinary way by the KZE's now-performed string quartet.

With the KZE concerts, I simply can't take in all the diversity and quality of what they have to say, what they feel, what they know, and what they are always able to express in high-quality, cultivated, intellectual chamber music. In summary: A gift.

Of course, the hall of the bishop's palace was once again full, days before their social media page had indicated "Sold Out", which is usually the case. At the very beginning of the concert, that is, when the quartet took the stage, the artists were greeted with a standing ovation. The facts speak for them, and they speak for the music, what I add myself is just crumbs.

To feel and express the nuances that this 18-year-old genius put on sheet music, yes, the first dynamized section cried, then suffocated, then complained. This is the intellectual fire with which I can imagine a Mendelssohn quartet that has now been realized. In which you can immediately feel the music along with the beyond, the intangible, suffering and love, darkness and light, which have come together in a tangible way here in Advent. Such a polished interplay, which we could hear on the KZE, reminded me of an elephant carefully and precisely walked on thin ice from the Intermezzo (not a hidden scherzo) in terms of the delicate appearance and the rhymes of the deep contents. Overall, I'll be an idealist moviegoer, and the figure of Indiana Jones suddenly jumped in, who crossed the invisible bridge because he felt and knew that the Holy Grail was on the other side, and he stepped with faith where no eye can see. Then that insanely passionate launch in the quartet finale... Such is a consciously formulated dramaturgy and musical direction. "Ist es wahr?" asks Mendelssohn at the beginning of the quartet - yes, the light is indeed coming, arriving after our current possibly dark, uncertain, foggy, gray expectations...

Tchaikovsky is the other genius, who is not famous for his chamber music today, but who was once lucky enough to find patronage, although he had many other painful doubts in life in addition to his work. Now, the KZE quartet, as it feels and conveys Tchaikovsky's gently painful inner refinements, in its proportions, in width and length, dismantled and reassembled (with particular attention to the rhythmic tricks of the introductory movement), listening to this is again an inner journey. Understanding, deep feelings that cut to the flesh. The middle part of the II. movement surprised me with its kinship with "The Volga Roars", I admit I did not know it, but I associated it in my gut with my grandfather's longing for home from the Don front, again with free anachronism. After the lyric, the scherzo-smearing was also delicately-mercilessly abundant. It also occurred to me, Yes, that's what a string quartet should sound like, because otherwise it would be pointless to play music. In old elementary school "forced" working-class workshop classes, they used to tease us as a joke to go get file oil (ulei de pilă), which we don't have. Now for some reason this jumped out at us, because it was oiled filing. Then there was the concept of overall proportion, which the KZE quartet worked with both within and across movements. Then came that certain always ballet-like Tchaikovsky, of course. What else can I say, I loved how the KZE replaced both ore and wood and transformed one from the other, in fact from itself, in terms of harmony, in accordance with the demands of the author's intention-expression given in fractions of a second.

There was also an encore, of course, with the two former violinists, Artur and Ernő, playing: Wieniawski's Etudes-caprices op. 18 no. 1 in G minor.