Classical Music: Notable String Quartets Return to Vancouver

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Takács Quartet with Stephen Hough

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When: Tuesday, February 22, 7:30 p.m.

Or: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton Street

Castalian String Quartet

When: Sunday, February 27, 3 p.m.

Or: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton Street

Much like our slow change into spring, the concert world has begun to show signs of renewed activity.

Big stuff for big ensembles is still off the table — see the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra overhaul some of its programs. But the ecosystem of recitals and chamber music is a more encouraging story. Two outstanding string quartet programs will soon be offered by Friends of Chamber Music and the Vancouver Recital Society, with more to come in the coming weeks.

The friends will host the 11th local performance of the Takács Quartet (recently included in BBC Music Magazine’s list of the 10 greatest string quartet ensembles of all time), back home at the Vancouver Playhouse and a traditional Tuesday night. The Takács begin with Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet. Then a treat — a new work by composer/pianist Steven Hough. For a grand finale, Hough joins the ensemble to play Dvorak’s popular Piano Quintet in A major.

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British/Australian Hough is a regular visitor to Vancouver. The VRS featured him and he returned under their auspices on numerous occasions, including a memorable performance at the Chan Center with cellist Steven Isserlis. And he also played in concertos with the VSO.

Hough is a contemporary polymath: an exceptional pianist and an excellent composer with a solid catalog of works in many genres. He has written extensively on spiritual issues and new technologies, published a book on perfume called Nosing Around and a novel called The Final Retreat. His latest opus is Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, published by Faber in 2019.

Hough’s first attempt at quartet writing, Les Six Rencontres, will be presented here as a Canadian premiere, a powerful reminder that although the Friends of Chamber Music’s business is traditional repertoire, its programs enthusiastically welcome important new works.

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While the Takács Quartet could hardly be better known, the Castalian Quartet, making their second Vancouver appearance for the Vancouver Recital Society, is one of the most impressive new ensembles. He formed in 2011 and immediately began to attract attention, including being named the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2019 Young Artist of the Year and the first Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence at Oxford University. The Castalian has an enviable reputation for its innovative programming: Its first program of 2018 for the VRS included Gabriel Fauré’s wonderful but too rarely heard string quartet.

This time, the program opens with one of Haydn’s superb quartets written in the mid-1790s, his famous String Quartet in D minor (“Fifths”); it ends with Schubert’s monumental Quartet in G major, D. 887, the very last of Schubert’s works in the quartet genre, written three decades later. But just as the Takács program offers a premiere, the Castalian has a new work in Vancouver, the only quartet by that famous member of the Mendelssohn clan, Fanny (who reportedly identifies herself as Frau Wilhelm Hensel).

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Félix’s big sister has benefited from the same encouragement and the same access to quality private education as her beloved younger brother. She may have led a privileged life, but her social status worked against her ability to pursue an independent professional career. Despite everything, during her too short life, she created an astonishing variety of music, admittedly mostly small-scale works.

Her only quartet was written in 1834, five years after her marriage to the painter Wilhelm Hensel. It wasn’t until 1994 that it became available on CD (what’s 160 years between creation and recording?), but it’s now quickly finding a place in the repertoire of progressive quartets who want show us what we missed.

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