Volume 22 Issue 7 - April 2017

Beat by Beat | Classical & Beyond
Sublime Schubert
Is Something to
Behold
PAUL ENNIS
COURTESY CBC
RADIO TWO
The New Orford String Quartet, founded in July 2009, takes
its name from the trailblazing Orford String Quartet whose
26-year career ended in 1991. The New Orford’s pedigree is
impressive: violinists Jonathan Crow and Andrew Wan, respectively
concertmasters of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre
Symphonique de Montréal; Eric Nowlin, principal viola of the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra; and Brian Manker, the OSM’s principal cello.
Their concert April 23, the finale of Mooredale Concerts’ current
season, is the quartet’s third appearance with Mooredale since 2012.
Terry Robbins wrote about their latest CD of Brahms’ two Op.51
Quartets in his February 2016 Strings Attached column for The
WholeNote: “Just about all of the Brahmsian qualities you would want
to hear are present: these are warm, passionate, nuanced, beautifully
judged and balanced performances, full of that almost autumnal,
nostalgic introspection so typical of the composer and with a lovely
dynamic range.”
Notwithstanding the JUNO nomination (Classical Album of the
Year: Solo or Chamber Ensemble) for that Brahms’ String Quartets
CD, which includes the A Minor Op.51 No.2 that they will perform
April 23, the highlight of the afternoon will be the opportunity to
hear Schubert’s Quintet in C Major D956 which represents the peak
of chamber music writing. I asked Mooredale Concerts’ artistic
director, Adrian Fung (also the cellist of the Afiara String Quartet, who
will be playing the Cello II part in the concert), when he first heard
Schubert’s Quintet in C. He said it was a recording with the Cleveland
Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma. Fung was about 10 or 11, shortly after he had
begun the cello. “It was transcendent,” he said. “And only later did
I realize how few recordings (and performances!) respect the true
dynamic markings in the first movement (where the two-cello theme
is intended within a pianissimo dynamic).”
“I was moved by the
sheer complexity and scope
of intention,” he told me.
“It is incredible how each
of the two cellos enables
the other to let go of a
supporting bass line and
soar as a melody. In string
quartets, when the cello
Adrian Fung
soars, usually the viola
needs to step in as best as
it can to provide resonance below. In this work, there is an incredible
spectrum of sound because of the equal balance of two violins,
one viola, and two cellos. One would think there would be more cello
quintets!”
His favourite configuration for performances of the work, he says,
is “an established quartet playing with a guest cellist. There is so
much poetry in how a group’s existing cellist plays a welcoming role –
musically – to a ‘brother/sister’ joining for this masterwork. I love how
in the second movement, Cello II gets such a spotlight playing a recurring,
transcendent, low bass line that is at once melismatic [and] a
deep pondering of life’s meaning.”
Fung first heard the piece live when he was about 15 or so (and a
student at different chamber music festivals), performed by various
faculty musicians coming together to give the work a reading. His
relationship to it has continued to evolve: “From first as a listener,
to having played both Cello I and Cello II parts with my own quartet
New Orford String Quartet
(Afiara) and as a guest with other quartets, the work has opened
up several unexpected riches with each performance. I have had
the privilege of welcoming incredible guest cellists in my role in
Afiara, learning especially from the late Marc Johnson of the Vermeer
Quartet, my mentor Joel Krosnick of the Juilliard String Quartet,
Denis Brott of the first Orford Quartet and Bonnie Hampton. In turn,
I have enjoyed playing the work with the Alexander and Cecilia
String Quartets, among others….The Schubert is truly something
to behold, with so many layers becoming more apparent with each
visit. One of my favourite performances of it was with my Afiara and
Shauna Rolston.”
As for me, I first heard Schubert’s Quintet as a teenager, taken to
the Eaton Auditorium by an aunt and uncle one fall afternoon. It was
played by the Quintetto Boccherini and presented by the Women’s
Musical Club of Toronto. I had never before been so moved by a piece
of chamber music. Many years and many diverse recordings since,
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