The Strad Recommends: Chiaroscuro Quartet: Haydn

THE STRAD RECOMMENDS

The Strad Issue: August 2025

Description: A freshness of approach proves winning in this evolving Haydn cycle

Musicians: Chiaroscuro Quartet

Works: Haydn: String Quartets op.33 nos.4–6

Catalogue number: BIS BIS-2608 (SACD)

You can never have too much Haydn. All the same, do we need the second-half repeat in the first movement of op.33 no.4? The Chiaroscuro doesn’t convince me (for all Hans Keller’s strictures to the contrary) that a reprise of the recapitulation beginning in the wrong key of E flat adds anything: a joke rarely sounds as good the second time round.

No.5 is another matter, where the two-bar introduction whisks the curtain up and down again like a showman promising a new scene and a fresh twist. As for no.6, the seeds of melody blow in and out again like dandelion clocks on a summer breeze; another chance to catch and hold them for a minute is all the more welcome.

In any case, you need your wits about you to register all the tiny inflections of phrase and gesture in playing that takes full advantage of the microphone.

Even more striking is the weight of pathos applied in thick brushstrokes to the slow movements of nos.5 and 6, Alina Ibragimova adding a top layer of vibrato as if it had never gone out of fashion – before the intensification of harmony brings (against expectation) pure tone and even more searing expression.

So, as in previous volumes of this increasingly impressive series, the Chiaroscuro takes nothing for granted. And it does tell a good joke, such as the wobbly pause over bar 20 to the Tom-and-Jerry caper ending no.4, which develops into a wild goose chase as surreal as a Ligeti bagatelle.

PETER QUANTRILL