THE FAB FOUR

The Kuss Quartet performs Beethoven at Suntory Hall s Blue Rose chamber space on the Paganini quartet of Stradivaris in June 2019

SUNTORY HALL

It is a once in a lifetime thing’, says William Coleman, violist of the Kuss Quartet, ‘something I will never forget.’ In June, the quartet visited Tokyo for a unique series of concerts: the complete Beethoven string quartets performed on the ‘Paganini’ quartet of Stradivari instruments which once belonged to the great 19th-century virtuoso and is now owned by the Nippon Music Foundation. The performances took place at Blue Rose, the chamber music space at Suntory Hall, Japan’s leading classical music venue, and were recorded by Rubicon Classics for release in Beethoven’s 250th birthday year, 2020.

Suntory Hall – built and wholly supported by the Japanese drinks company Suntory – is located in the prestigious central Tokyo region of Akasaka. It opened in 1986, the project instigated by Suntory’s then president, Keizo Saji, who enlisted the help of Japanese cellist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, now president of Suntory Hall. The main hall, overseen by acoustics guru Yasuhisa Toyota, became the envy of the world and the model for many later venues, including ones in Paris and Hamburg.

The ‘Blue Rose’ name of the adjacent chamber venue is a reference to rose breeding, another of Suntory’s commercial interests. In 2011 the company managed to breed a blue rose, for many decades an elusive goal in the industry – hence the venue’s slogan: ‘where the impossible becomes possible’. Every June since then, Blue Rose has hosted the Suntory Hall Chamber Music Garden festival. Although Western classical music is popular in Japan, chamber music remains a niche concern. Tsutsumi says, ‘Chamber Music Garden is all about fun, and about enjoying the listening experience. With so many artists performing so many different works, it is like a beautiful garden with all sorts of flowers blossoming.’ Tsutsumi himself performs regularly at the festival; this year he gave supple and sprightly readings of the two Mendelssohn cello sonatas that belied his 76 years.

As well as Chamber Music Garden, Tsutsumi instigated the Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy in 2010, encouraging younger musicians to make music together. The programme is modelled on a similar Opera Academy run by the venue – opera, too, lags far behind orchestral music in Japanese culture. For Tsutsumi, the spirit of collaboration in chamber music is crucial to the academy project. ‘Music is not something that you are taught, but something you create together. Traditionally in Japan, teachers are seen as great, and students look up to them, but we think it is important to be more reciprocal.’ Tsutsumi has assembled a group of mentors, this year including Kikuei Ikeda (violin) and Kazuhide Isomura (viola), both members of the now defunct Tokyo Quartet, who performed in the closing gala with the academy fellows.

Promoting musicians of the future is a key aim also of Japan’s Nippon Music Foundation, which pursues diverse musical activities, most of which are centred on its collection of 21 Cremonese instruments: 15 violins, 1 viola and 3 cellos by Stradivari, and 2 violins by Guarneri ‘del Gesu’. As with many Japanese arts organisations, it is well funded – in this case surprisingly by the philanthropy of the speedboat racing industry. Managing director Tamio Kano says, ‘Our foundation’s policy is to acquire the finest instruments, those in excellent condition that are suitable for concert activities. We are not a museum – the instruments must be played to be alive.’ Young players are given priority, the foundation’s mission being to pass instruments on to the next generation. Their seven-year loan scheme is open to players under 35 (in the case of quartets, their average age under 40). Kano feels this is the ideal timeframe: ‘We think the musician takes one year to get used to the instrument, and the last year is to buy or get back to their own one – time to adjust. So the middle five years are the time for the musician to embrace and enjoy the instrument.’

The Paganini quartet: Stradivari violins from 1727 and 1680, a viola from 1731 and a cello from 1736

MAIN IMAGE SHINICHI YOKOYAMA / NIPPON MUSIC FOUNDATION. INSET IMAGE SUNTORY HALL

’THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY THE FOUR STRADS RESONATE TOGETHER, WHICH REALLY ALLOWS EACH INSTRUMENT TO BREATHE’ – VIOLIST WILLIAM COLEMAN

Suntory Hall s main concert space

The jewel of the collection is the ‘Paganini’ quartet, acquired in 1994 and since played by the Tokyo, Hagen and Cremona quartets. The Kuss Quartet, based in Germany, applied to borrow the instruments specifically for the concerts and recordings at Suntory Hall. Kano recalls that the playing standard of the Kuss was a significant factor in agreeing to the loan, as was the fact that the performances were taking place in Japan, as the foundation seeks opportunities for Japanese audiences to hear the instruments.

But it was a short loan (over an eight-week period), and the players had just a few weeks to get acquainted. Coleman recalls, ‘We got the two violins first from Japan [on 22 April], and so at that point we had the two Strad violins, my 1736 Carlo Antonio Testore and an 18th-century Andrea Castagneri cello. I thought, this is already pretty massive; can it get any better? And actually, it did.’ They had the viola and the cello from 10 May, and Coleman goes on to describe the experience of all four instruments being played as an ensemble. ‘There is something about the way the four Strads resonate together that really allows each instrument to breathe.

The cello and viola have an incredible sound blend.’

The Strads command respect, and Coleman found himself adapting his technique. ‘You do hear that Strads are not always easy, that they don’t play themselves. They are extraordinary, but you have to find the sweet spot. When you do, there is nothing like it! In the beginning, I was in awe of the physics – how is it possible? You just breathe on it, touch a note and the resonance carries on forever. I looked at it and thought, “This isn’t just the varnish!” They are quite diva-like. If you do something wrong or something that doesn’t suit the instrument, it just says, “No!” Your playing can work on most instruments; quite quickly they sound like you. With Strads you really have to listen to them, to respect them. And then you find that your playing and the instrument’s personality really join together. That’s where I am now. It has been an amazing journey.’

The Kuss Quartet with their own instruments (left to right): first violinist Jana Kuss, violist William Coleman, cellist Mikayel Hakhnazaryan and second violinist Oliver Wille

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’IT REQUIRES MORE TIME TO GET TO KNOW A STRADIVARI BECAUSE OF ITS ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES’ – CELLIST M IKAYEL HAKHNAZARYAN

Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, cellist of the Kuss Quartet, says, ‘One hears that Stradivari instruments have a really strong character, and that you must get to know them. And I have to say it is partly true; it takes time to convince the instrument, for it to open up to you emotionally, so that it lets you do what you want. It requires more time to get to know because of its endless possibilities.’

The ‘Paganini’ quartet is a surprisingly diverse group of instruments. The second violin is early, dating from 1680, while the first violin and viola are from 1727 and 1731 respectively, and the cello is late: 1736. The viola was the instrument that inspired Paganini to commission Berlioz’s Harold en Italie (though Paganini never played the work).

For the Kuss Quartet, those differences in character made the set even more interesting. Hakhnazaryan explains, ‘The four instruments were not made to be played with each other.

They don’t sound similar. There is a huge difference between the violins, not only in their dates but also in their characters – they are day and night. The first violin is so brilliant with such a powerful sound. The Tokyo Quartet nicknamed it “the Elephant”! The second violin has a personal, more focused sound, which goes very well with the role of the second violin, not showing off but one of the inner voices. The cello is very different from mine; it is much bigger.’

And according to the players, those differences allowed the players each to express their individual personality. Second violinist Oliver Wille says, ‘In our quartet we are all very different. We try to make sure that our own voices come out and that our personalities come through. William likes to be adventurous, and Mikayel likes to sing a lot and to imitate people, and he does that on the cello as well. So it is great that the instruments are very different and don’t fit closely together. But what they have in common is the Stradivari quality. The clarity meant that we were never covering Jana [Kuss, first violin]. That allowed us to experiment with extremes.’

Hakhnazaryan agrees: ‘One of the fantastic things about these instruments is that everything is so clearly heard. That means every voice can be played in a very refined way.

The result is a clean sound, and this is an important advantage for a quartet player. In a quartet, the cello player sometimes struggles in rapid passages in the lower register; they are not always positively clear. But the quick response of this instrument was something absolutely fascinating.’

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’IF YOU PLAY EARLY BEETHOVEN, THEN MIDDLE AND THEN LATE, YOU MEET DIFFERENT COMPOSERS’ – VIOLINIST OLIVER WILLE

The qualities of the ‘Paganini’ instruments soon became evident when the quartet began to work on the Beethoven. ‘You get to the top of Everest quicker’, explains Hakhnazaryan, ‘when you climb with the help of these fantastic instruments!’ Wille goes on, ‘We had a lot of fun experimenting with how far we could go. In rehearsal we always tried to look for the extremes, and to play them clearly and individually so that we understood each other.

We wanted to have a conversation going on, where we played with real meaning. And we didn’t want our live recording to have a studio sound. Our idea was not to present a museum of Beethoven in a way that audiences expected of us – or even in a way that we expected from ourselves. With these instruments – these tools of endless possibility – we went for it, and used this chance to explore, and to be relevant in the moment.’

The players opted to perform the quartets in strictly chronological order, so op.18 no.3 before op.18 no.1, and op.132 before op.130. Coleman says, ‘By blocking them all o. in such an ordered way you hear in the early period a totally di.erent language. The early quartets are sort of super-charged Haydn, almost too big to be held in place, but still totally Classical in style. Then there are these extraordinary long 40-minute works, the first time ever that quartets had been that long. And then, of course, the late period is totally di.erent again.’

Wille agrees, ‘If you play early Beethoven, then middle and then late, you meet di.erent composers. He constantly reinvents himself; that is the brilliance of his composing. We wanted to show that reinvention in our approach – each player asking themselves what it meant to them to play this work, this movement, right now, here in Tokyo.’

One problem was the alternative finale to op.130, which technically should appear at the very end of a chronological survey. The Kuss Quartet chose to omit it completely. ‘It is just such an odd movement’, says Coleman. ‘It is so tonguein- cheek, and we felt it is a sort of middle finger to the conservative attitudes of the day.’ Instead, a new work was commissioned to end the cycle, String Quartet no.6 ‘Beethoveniana’ (2019), by French composer Bruno Mantovani.

The work quotes from all 16 Beethoven quartets, but distorts these references through microtones, extended techniques and complex rhythms. The result is fun and lightly irreverent, all the quotes clearly apparent for hearing the new work in the context of the Beethoven cycle.

But the late quartets remain the heart of this project. As I listened to its Suntory Hall performances, the Kuss Quartet took a freely expressive approach to the music, the rhythms and phrasing intuitively shaped. That, combined with the rich resonant tone of the Stradivari instruments, gave the faster movements a feeling of natural, unforced propulsion and the slow movements a ¤oating timeless quality. On the day of the op.130 concert, Coleman mentioned a quote from Stravinsky about the Grosse Fuge: ‘an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever’. As the evening’s concert drew to a close, it was easy to agree – the Kuss Quartet rendered the Grosse Fuge in ethereal tones, while also laying bare the music’s sheer emotional complexity: a profound and moving experience, but one that only increased the mystery and elusive majesty of Beethoven’s late masterpiece.