Charles T. Downey reviews the Quatuor Danel’s Sunday afternoon concert at the Phillips Collection, a performance of the music of Mieczysław Weinberg and Dmitri Shostakovich that included the world premiere of Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 3:
The first movement pulsated with an obsessive moodiness, excepting some quieter moments in the middle. In the second movement, the unison playing of the second violinist, violist, and cellist was intense, with first violinist Marc Danel keening in alternation with it. Second violinist Gilles Millet had a sweet, more rarified sound when he took over that lament theme, matched by violist Vlad Bogdanas. The lovely fugue of the third movement, much of it played with mutes on, was based on a carefree subject betraying little of the cynical undercutting one might hear from Shostakovich.
The French string quartet follows the National Symphony Orchestra and Gidon Kremer’s January concert spotlighting Weinberg’s works, as well as Pro Musica Hebraica’s decade-long efforts to bring recognition to the Polish composer as one of last century’s greatest forgotten musical voices.
Read the rest of Downey’s review at Washington Classical Review.