The fifth February Festival started in The Hague on Wednesday; a five-day chamber music festival devoted to one composer. This year Franz Schubert is on the desks.
On the opening night it especially made Simply Quartet impression with a neat and intense Fifteenth String Quartet† The string quartet is still young, you hear that; there is still little ‘own stamp’, but that leaves all the more room for Schubert. The tremolos in particular build them up beautifully, together or one at a time after they have been diligently passed on to each other. They still opt for fortississimo a bit recklessly, where forte had also done the work and the first violinist sometimes seems to have too many solo ambitions, but where the music has to go from low and hard to high and soft, you see them together in a beautifully graceful curl. make in music. They seemed so warm from the voice of a soprano Tinka Pypker who had sung Schubert’s ‘Mignon’ before it.
It Geister Duo, a French quatre-main duo that preceded the quartet, won the ARD music competition last year and seemed to be resting on those laurels on Wednesday evening. Manuel Vieillard in particular, behind the high keys, played strangely angular. Slower parts just didn’t want to settle down, graceful romantic parts weren’t very loving. The Simply Quartet did that a lot better.
Fortunately, the February Festival can take place again in February this year. Last year the festival was unexpectedly renamed a June festival, then with music by Camille Saint-Saëns. The Geister Duo can show again on Friday why they are prize winners, but also the song cycle among other things The beautiful Mullerin by Vincent Kusters and Roger Braun is still on the roll. The festival will run until February 27.
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