The Belcea Quartet with Reto Bieri at Oxford Chamber Music Festival
The Belcea Quartet gave this concert in the Sheldonian Theatre on the second day of Oxford Chamber Music Festival, and it was all that we have come to expect from OCMF - distinguished artists from far and wide, performing with passion and conviction.
Their interpretation of these familiar Mozart and Beethoven classics was fresh and daring, taking risks, to make us re-experience the strangeness of parts of the Mozart "Dissonances" Quartet, the boldness and almost savage energy of parts of the Beethoven op.135 quartet - so amazingly different from its mellow, contemplative slow movement.
The leader of the Belcea Quartet [https://www.belceaquartet.com/the-quartet-2/] is Romanian violinist Corina Belcea, a virtuoso who plays like a soloist. [https://share.google/Hw2ItIB1CkRpenaEt].The other members of the quartet, Korean-Australian violinist Suyeon Kang,[https://suyeon-kang.com/], Polish violist Krzysztof Chorzelski [https://share.google/e74yzwhYL2XWesuOP] and French cellist Antoine Lederlin, [https://www.cmclassics.ch/en/artistes/antoine-lederlin/] played and seemed to breathe as one, utterly merged.
In the Mozart Clarinet Quintet they were joined by Swiss clarinettist Reto Bieri [https://www.retobieri.ch/] whose soft tones warbled and burbled through the elegant arabesques of the first movement, the pensive mournfulness of the second, and the impish cleverness of the last, with its witty variations.
My only criticism of the concert is that they performed only one movement of Thomas Adès Arcadiana. An unfamiliar work to most of the audience, it sounded enticingly dreamy, nostalgic and evocative. I'd like to hear the whole lot.
The Festival continues until the end of the week with many more exciting events at a range of venues. See
