Hosting Shuli Waterman (viola) and Hillel Zori ('cello), the Carmel Quartet (music director: Yoel Greenberg) performs works of Byrd, J.S.Bach and Brahms

Yoel Greenberg,Tami Waterman,Hillel Zori,Tali Goldberg,Rachel Ringelstein,Shuli Waterman

The Carmel Quartet signed out of the 2025-2026 Strings and More series with "Echoes from the Past". Presented by Prof. Yoel Greenberg (music director and a member of the Carmel Quartet since 2003), together with Carmel Quartet violinists Rachel Ringelstein and Tali Goldberg and 'cellist Tami Waterman, the quartet hosted Shuli Waterman (viola) and Hillel Zori ('cello). This writer attended the (English language) explained concert on June 10th 2026, at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha'ananim.

 

Somewhat unexpectedly, the evening's program opened with a piece from the vast legacy of the golden age of viol consort music in England (1575-1650) - William Byrd's Fantasia III à 6. Seated in a circle, as did viol (and other) players of the upper classes for their social entertainment of music-making, the artists presented the piece's initial dark and mellifluous sound world. Moving seamlessly from section to section, their playing underscored the play of motifs tossed from one instrument to another, also drawing one's attention to the occasional "clash" of false relations (a characteristic of English music from this period), as the sonorous sections gave way to a series of rustic dances. Not performed on period instruments, the players, however, did away with the use of vibrato, producing a clean, candid, informed and pleasingly convincing reading of the piece.

 

The evening’s discussion led to the viola and its bleak plight - its role in symphonic- or string quartet settings to provide middle harmonies, to the fact that there is not much solo repertoire written for viola and to the unfortunate situation of the viola and viola players being the target for many jokes! It was flautist/composer Johann Joachim Quantz who referred to the viola as "unimportant in the music world" as "the instrument…often played by people who are either beginners in music or do not have the talent to distinguish themselves on the violin..."  J.S.Bach himself was an excellent performer on both violin and the viola. According to his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Sebastian's interest in harmony meant he was partial to playing middle parts, i.e. the viola. In Brandenburg Concerto No.6 BWV 1051 (Greenberg refers to it as "Bach's social protest against the lowly status of the viola"), the score does not call for violins. Instead, two violas play the leading roles, supported by two violas da gamba, a 'cello, a violone and harpsichord (here, adjusted to suit the ensemble.) With his employer, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen a reasonable gamba player, Bach was able to enjoy playing one of the viola parts in this concerto. At the Jerusalem concert, Yoel Greenberg and Rachel Ringelstein performed the leading viola roles, with Hillel Zori undertaking the gamba part on 'cello. Following the opening Allegro, its main theme in close canon, with the two viola parts entering right on the heels of each other, the second movement (Adagio) was played only by the leading violas and 'cellos, the violas spinning out long lines rising into the violin’s usual register, as they enlisted some attractive ornamenting. Then, to the hearty Allegro (3rd movement), with the soloists elaborating the main theme with florid passages of sixteenth-notes. Altogether, a splendid reading of the work, music unique in its glorious, mellow tapestry of string textures.

 

Another work in which the viola is well represented is Johannes Brahms' String Sextet No.2 Op.36 in G major. From the pen of the 30-something-year-old composer, Sextet No. 2 reveals Brahms as having honed the elements of his craft, with emphasis on his skill as a contrapuntalist. The work’s instrumentation (two violins, two violas, two 'cellos) invites tonal richness and depth that seems to defy the chamber music genre. Here, we are aware of a measure of austerity, the sextet's climate of resignation foreshadowing many of the composer’s more mature works. Who could have imagined that G major could feel this melancholy and unsettled? The players gave the work a dedicated, polished performance, one carefully paced, their ensemble playing communicating a sense of shared purpose. Beginning with the opening Allegro's ghostly murmur in the first viola, moving on to the movement's drama and sublime moments, to the Scherzo's poignant-, bittersweet- and Hungarian-inspired aspects, the Adagio  emerged impressive in its variations, the latter encompassing the full range of the string sextet's sonorities, the variations ranging from the introspective to the ebullient. In the hide-and-seek of the final movement, an exhilarating contrapuntal tour de force, the players' virtuosity and freshness were engaging throughout. Yoel Greenberg expressed that he wanted the audience to sense their enjoyment in playing. I believe it did.

 

Referring to the works, to performance practice of their times and to writings of the composers' contemporaries, Prof. Greenberg's talk was lively, informative and convivial, enriched by texts beautifully read by Carmel Quartet members and by some interesting illustrations shown on a screen. 

Prof. Yoel Greenberg (Courtesy Carmel Quartet)