It is no wonder that we encounter Shostakovich once again in this Leuven 20•21 Festival. He was there two years ago as "guest of honour" with a couple of his string quartets. His history is well known by now. That is much less the case for the work of Mieczyslaw Weinberg. But even less known is that both composers were good friends with each other. Although the young Weinberg and the older Shostakovich were actually colleagues competing in the same field. There was even a mutual string quartet competition, the programme booklet tells us. After the Polish-Jewish Weinberg had fled his country from German aggression, the Russian Shostakovich helped him obtain a visa for Moscow and that sealed their friendship.
The Festival directorate chose Dmitri Shostakovich's 15th string quartet and the 16th by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, performed by a quartet that is equally familiar to loyal festival-goers, the Quatuor Danel. Thanks in no small part to their recording of all seventeen string quartets by Weinberg, in 2009, his name came increasingly to the attention of music lovers. Weinberg wrote his 16th string quartet in memory of his deported sister. For Shostakovich, his 15th was his last string quartet. The concert bears the title: "In Memoriam" and was appropriately performed in a serene setting, the Leuven Sint Geertrui church. In the middle of the church sat the quartet musicians on a small round stage, the audience in a square around it. Not very numerous, but quite a lot of young people. You might think: "connoisseurs", because string quartets do have that reputation, don't they? And we sat close to that Danel quartet and could immediately absorb those full sounds of Weinberg's 16th string quartet. But alongside hard passages were also very soft moments: with the bow the strings bouncing harshly tapping. Contrasting dynamics it was and you could also see that in the mimicry and gestures of the members and especially of leading violinist Marc Danel. And always those unexpected turns. Composers of that sort of music must have it harder than "papa" Haydn, father of the string quartet, who could draw from a bottomless well of familiar patterns, schemas and formulas. Weinberg could rely on other sources of inspiration, such as East European Jewish Klezmer music. They remain sounds and notes, gathered in the mind of the composer who lays them here towards the end softly but dissonantly on the last page of the score.
And then came that last string quartet of Shostakovich. Is it perhaps because we know Shostakovich longer and better, but from the first tentative notes this music sounds weightier, more compelling, more masterful than what we heard so far. He gave the first part the title Elegy, but you could say that of the rest too. There are no caesuras with the other parts. The entire quartet is one long "In memoriam". And in terms of quality it sometimes seems like the late string quartets of Beethoven, but then squared. With Marc Danel in between almost breaking loose. Intimate? Melancholic? One long lamentation? Yes, but this truly sounds like the musical unravelling of death, carried by three excellent violinists, supported by the cellist.
Get to know Weinberg, certainly. But especially honour Shostakovich.
WHAT: In Memoriam. Mieczyslaw Weinberg, String Quartet no. 16; Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet no. 15.
WHO: Quatuor Danel. Marc Danel, Gilles Millet violin; Vlad Bogdanas, viola; Yovan Markovitch, cello.
WHERE: Sint Geertrui church, Leuven
WHEN: 24 October 2023