Alba Quartet in triumph with Fejes Quartet
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Katrina, Jack and I
witnessed a tour-de-force performance of
Mendelssohn’s Octet at Òran
Mór on Monday 23 June 2008. As one of the
highlights of the West End Festival, the Alba
Quartet and the Fejes String Quartet played a
wonderful and mixed programme eventually teaming
up to play Mendelssohn’s Octet.
The Alba Quartet started the evening and were all vim
and vigour imbuing a sense of fun and urgency into
their performance. As a result I sat through their
pieces with a grin the size of a Cheshire cat.
Then we heard the Fejes String Quartet whose members
are all from the RSNO. They played the second quartet
from Bartók which is not an easy piece to make much
of at a first hearing. Their playing was musical,
precise and demonstrated a wonderful clarity. The
thrid movement particularly resonated with me and
they left me inspred to listen to this difficult
piece a few more times.
However all that had gone before was just a warmer to
a stunning performance. It helps that Mendelssohn
wrote such a wonderful piece when only 16 in 1825.
However the performance was magnificent which was
reflected in the length and honesty of the response
of the audience at the end as we clapped our hands
sore. I could not do a better job at describing it
than to direct you to the review by Michael Tumelty.
He gave it five stars *****.
West End Festival: Mendelssohn’s Octet, Oran Mor
Michael Tumelty
Pollok House Arts Society are delighted to have the
Alba Quartet play for us in the upcoming season and
if Monday night was anything to go by all members
will be kicking themselves if the miss this dynamic
string quartet.