Haste and speed are seldom good, even in music. Just ask the Taurus Quartet. Their latest cd sounds like a convincing ode to this all too often forgotten adage.
In 2022, Concertgebouw Brugge organized the third edition of its arts festival SLOW(36H), an ode to slowness with the motto: the slower the experience, the more intense the memory. As part of this festival, so we read in the booklet accompanying this new album, the Taurus Quartet was asked to create their own program, loosely inspired by a 2015 recording by the Keller Quartett, Cantante e tranquillo. The seed planted then has since grown into a recording project consisting exclusively of slow movements. Not unique, then, but certainly a sustained attempt to stand almost completely still for a moment.
On this train of slowness, a motley array of composers takes their seats. Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) and György Kurtág (°1926) serve as the main anchoring points, but polyphonists Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377) and Pierre de la Rue (ca. 1450-1518) are also present, as are twentieth-century composers Anton Webern (1883-1945) and Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988). Their music is taken out of its natural habitat and thereby placed in a different light. It is a procedure in which there is both gain and loss. You naturally lose the original structure of the string quartet or composition, but that is outweighed by the interesting recontextualization that takes place. For example, you discover that the Arioso interrotto from Kurtág's Officium breve in memoriam Andrae Szervánsky (opus 28) in all its restraint ultimately has more in common with Machaut's Misa de Notre Dame than one might think. And this despite the many centuries that separate both compositions.
Respect and tenderness
Slowness appears in many forms on this album, but perhaps nowhere as convincingly as in the slow movements of Beethoven. These come from the late string quartets – in B-flat major (opus 130) and F major (opus 135) – and the second Razumovsky quartet (opus 59 no. 2). For the Taurus Quartet, this is familiar territory: the quartet has several complete performances of these string quartets on its record. And that is also evident in the listening. Soft playing and yet also clear and precise articulation is an art, as we hear for example in the Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo from opus 135. The album both begins and ends with this restrained movement. And what stands out even without listening is that such a tantalizingly slow journey through the musical landscape also causes the musicians to slow down. The result? A performance that lasts a full forty seconds longer than the one we initially heard. The poignant Cavatina from opus 130 is, in contrast to the soulful Molto adagio from the second Razumovsky quartet, drawn out less long than we have become accustomed to with most quartets. The slightly more incisive phrasing by the Taurus Quartet makes this famous movement less of a tearjerker and more a message of hope, which may come closer to the essence of what Beethoven wanted to express with this extraordinary music.
With SLOW, the Taurus Quartet shows that it is at home in multiple idioms. But above all, that the distance between these divergent languages is less great than often assumed. The whispering fragility of Kurtág's Microludes – barely audible even – stands less far from Beethoven's late quartets, which in turn were far ahead of their time. But also the unexpected connections between the modern compositions of Scelsi and the 5 Sätze for string quartet (opus 5) by Anton Webern are worth the discovery. They are both works full of tension and, in the case of Scelsi, with a particularly compelling dynamism. Add to that the transparency that speaks from the polyphonic compositions of Machaut and Pierre de la Rue and we get a recording that, despite its unambiguous theme and design, still captivates from beginning to end. In a society that consciously seeks and even glorifies speed, SLOW can offer a welcome countervoice. Just as on this cd, it comes down to using slowness well. Or as French sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher Pierre Sansot expressed it (in Du bon usage de la lenteur): "La lenteur, c'était, à mes yeux, la tendresse, le respect, la grâce dont les hommes et les éléments sont parfois capables."