European Capital of Culture 2019
The Brussels String Quartet is formed by the leaders of the strings of the National Orchestra of Belgium. Together they form a colourful international group: Japanese Misako Akama and Bulgarian Jacqueline Preis on violin, American Mark Sabbah on viola and cellist Dmitri Silvian from Ukraine. The quartet was recently established. This was their second concert, immediately in a special location, thousands of kilometres away from Belgian soil. The Brussels String Quartet was programmed in the International Chamber Music Festival of the Bulgarian city Plovdiv. At this annual festival, Bulgarian musicians living and working abroad often feature on the programme. In this case violinist Jacqueline Preis. She greets the audience in Bulgarian and introduces the various pieces beautifully to each other.The beautiful Balabanov house, where the concert took place, dates from the so-called Bulgarian Renaissance, mid-nineteenth century, when the city flourished under the Ottoman Empire and wealthy merchants built their lavishly decorated houses. The house stands in the old town of Plovdiv, on one of the steep hills that make the city unique. Plovdiv was European Capital of Culture in 2019 and can boast a growing reputation as a city of culture with a particularly rich past.
Above the strings
The large salon is surrounded by luxurious wooden wall panelling, and the wooden ceiling also reflects the sound well. Yet it is not a concert hall, the audience of about fifty listeners and the carpets made the sound of the string quartet somewhat dry and dull. But precisely under these difficult circumstances one recognizes the quality of the musician. Moreover, there is no stage, the front row listeners sit barely a few metres from the musicians, almost with their noses above the strings. When you sit closer to the first violin than to the viola or the cello, the sound of the quartet as a whole naturally becomes somewhat unbalanced.
The Brussels String Quartet begins immediately with Belgian work, two serenades by Joseph Jongen. This underrated composer is indeed known in our country, but abroad he is overshadowed by the great French impressionists. Jongen worked a lot in Spa, his compositions do for the ears and mind just as well as a treatment with mineral baths. After the "homemade" composition we go to Bohemia, Preis leads the next part. Not one of the well-known string quartets by Dvořak, but four folk songs, arranged for string quartet. An atmospheric performance, from the first notes we are in the Bohemian forest. As the last work, there is the mainstay of the evening, Mendelssohn's third string quartet, op.44, no.1. Marc Sabbah is not only an excellent violist but also a fluent talker. After Preis's introduction, he adds that Mendelssohn was only twenty-five when he wrote the work. What was I doing when I was twenty-five, he jokes. A nice spontaneous remark, if it were not that Felix Mendelssohn at twenty-five was already in the autumn of his career ... he had only thirteen years left to live.
Expectations
Mendelssohn is in many of his works the sonorous sublimity. A Mozart who rose from his grave half a century after his death and continues composing in an early romantic idiom, the pinnacle of genius. With Mendelssohn you are not in nature as with Dvořak, but somewhere between heaven and earth. The third string quartet is also a technical masterpiece. Especially in the last part the musicians prove themselves to be top. I myself sat two metres away from first violinist Misako Akama, not a single minimal mistake in intonation or bow technique did I notice or hear. With the serenity of a Japanese monk and her Oriental grace, she reminds me of Yayoi Toda, a Japanese angel who won the Elisabeth Competition for violin in 1991. As an encore they play a dance by Bulgarian composer Marin Goleminov, in Plovdiv as well known as Jongen in our country. Lively Bulgarian rhythms to round off this wonderfully beautiful concert.
This is only the second concert of the Brussels String Quartet, it is not yet the well-oiled machine of a renowned string quartet, but they show what they have in store. If they stay together for another ten years, they are already creating great expectations. Once there were four Russians who formed the Budapest Quartet, one of the legendary string quartets of mid-twentieth century. From Japan, New York, Odessa and Bulgaria, four young string players have now settled in Brussels. Within twenty years they will be ripe fifty-somethings, perhaps these international Brusselers will become just as good as their predecessors from Budapest ...
WHO: Brussels String Quartet
WHERE: Balabanov house, Plovdiv
WHEN: 30 May 2023