Sabine Meyer and the Modigliani String Quartet Play Music by Mozart, Schumann and Ian Munro

Sabine-meyer

Sabine Meyer. Photo: Thomas Rabsch.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney: 12 November 2011
The ensemble will play this program in Newcastle on 17 November and Melbourne on 19 November

Ian Munro
Clarinet Quintet, Songs from the Bush
 I Country Dance
 II Campfire and Night Sky
 III Drover's Lament

Robert Schumann
String Quartet in A major, opus 41 no. 3

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K581

Sabine Meyer - clarinet

Modigliani String Quartet
Philippe Bernhard - violin
Loïc Rio - violin
Laurent Marfaing - viola
François Kieffer - cello

The Modigliani String Quartet has quite a definite personality as a musical ensemble and so has Sabine Meyer in her playing. This is perhaps part of the reason they get along so well together in performance. The differences in style and color of each member of the quartet, though not great, are enough to create a consistent pellucid ensemble sound — one can hear straight through to the bottom of the music like a pristine glacial lake. Sabine Meyer's tone slipped in without a splash, though caused interesting ripples, without any sense of the strings merely 'setting off' a soloist, rather her clarinet combined when the music so called for to shade the sum color of the ensemble or conversed with the quartet on equal terms, and the musicians were always looking, glancing, listening closely to one another. The group did sound perhaps as if they would prefer a somewhat brighter acoustic, but they made the best use of the City Recital Hall (which was certainly adequate either way). Their tempo changes were always well judged to let the sound rebound — however dim on its return —, catch up, and shade in the sound and their pauses and silences were perfectly judged to satisfy the local drama and drift of the melodic structure of the music while allowing as best one could hope for for the fast-fading ring of the hall.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!