Mozart String Quintets K.515 and K.516 performed by Ensemble PHOENIX on period instruments at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

 

 Myrna Herzog,Lilia Slavny,Noam Schuss,Miriam Fingert,Amos Boasson (Eliahu Feldman)

I don't remember the last time I heard Mozart string quintets played on the concert platform. Yet it is no secret that W.A. Mozart soared to new heights in his late works for five instruments - the four quintets for strings, all scored for string quartet with a second viola and the quintet for clarinet and string quartet, K. 581.  Ensemble PHOENIX's performance of String Quintets K.515 and 516 at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem on June 17th 2023 was an opportunity not to be missed. Also drawing listeners to the event was the fact that Ensemble PHOENIX performs on period instruments (Baroque instruments, Classical bows, gut strings, here tuned to A430 and in 1/6 comma temperament, as were organs of Mozart’s time) offering insight into how the quintets may have sounded when Mozart and his friends played them for their own diversion. Performing the works were Noam Schuss and Lilia Slavny (violins), Amos Boasson and Miryam Fingert (violas) and PHOENIX founder and musical director Myrna Herzog - 'cello.

 

1787 was a pivotal year for Mozart. With Vienna ringing out with melodies from the "Marriage of Figaro" that had debuted the year before, Mozart turned to work on what would become his operatic masterpiece, "Don Giovanni". Indeed, 1787 saw the completion and the debut of the latter. Taking a break, Mozart composed the pair of string quintets that would eventually be regarded as his greatest chamber music masterworks - the K. 515 in C major and K. 516 in g minor, writing them within a month of each other, shortly after learning of the death of his beloved father, Leopold. No concrete evidence exists as to the occasion(s) or musicians for which Mozart composed these string quintets. One theory is that Mozart wrote the quintets to win the favour of Frederick William II, the new King of Prussia, who happened to be a gifted cellist. H.C. Robbins Landon, on the other hand, suspects that the composer was “hoping to sell manuscript copies to amateurs by subscription.” (Amateur players would have found them technically daunting.)  As to why Mozart chose to write for the viola quintet, we do know that the viola was the stringed instrument Mozart preferred to play himself. These works show his love for the viola, placing emphasis on rich inner voices as well as on prominent lead roles for the first chair. Indeed, the close completion dates of these two quintets suggests that Mozart might have intended them as a contrasting pair - K. 515, in C major, characterized by optimism and confidence; with K. 516, in G minor, speaking of pessimism and despair. 

 

From the mammoth opening movement of the String Quintet No.3 in C major (Noam Schuss-1st violin, Amos Boasson-1st viola) to the closing Allegro, all tempi were moderate, giving the stage to the work's largely intense setting, its expressive use of tonality and chromaticism, the unique partitioning and grouping of parts among the five instruments fortifying inner voices creating new textures, and to the resourceful interplay of duets, antiphonal quartets and everything in between. Shaping gestures into deep musical meaning, Noam Schuss led and soloed judiciously, meeting at eye level with Boasson, also with Herzog, to convey the work's humanistic substructure.  As to the final movement (Allegro), we were presented with the richly sonorous resources of the quintet as well as with mirthful grandeur, so unmistakably Mozartian.

  

For the K.516 Quintet, Mozart's choice of g minor, a tonality associated with agitation and despair, is clearly no coincidence, indeed strengthened by the fact that the first movement's second theme also appears in the tonic minor. As the artists (Lilia Slavny-1st violin, Miryam Fingert-1st viola) present the opening Allegro (the upper three instruments untethered by the bass) in playing expressing restless, yet quiet agitation with a touch of reticence, Lilia Slavny (1st violin) brings out the work's sense of anguish as she leans into key notes, expressively engaging with Fingert (1st viola), also with Herzog. The despondent mood (and tonality) continues into the Minuetto (hardly minuet-like in spirit) characterized by a dark-and-light polarity, with tension added by the repeated appearance of the motif of two bitter, off-beat, ejaculatory chords. Throughout, Slavny's playing incorporated some tasteful ornamentation. Played with strings muted, with each motif strategically placed, the artists' heartfelt, inward-looking performance of the Adagio, its tragedy at times temporarily whisked away but never completely out of earshot, was profound and soul-searching. (On hearing the Adagio, Tchaikovsky chronicled experiencing a "feeling of resignation and inconsolable sorrow....I had to hide in the farthest corner of the concert-room so that others would not see how much this music affected me.”)  As to the final movement, the artists convincingly recreated its enigmatic course as it weighed in with a lengthy adagio introduction wrought of dissonance and unresolved tension, this to be swept away with the gallant elegance of carefree rondo dances in G major.

 

Hearing these two monumental works on authentic instruments and at the hands of five outstanding artists in playing that was poised and emotionally balanced was a rare experience. Keeping a safe distance from music-making that is precious or overwrought, the PHOENIX artists' performance was balanced, buoyant, intelligent and powerful, a performance reflecting their own enquiry into- and deep experience encountered in playing the quintets, both of which they conveyed to the audience.