Brentano Quartet review – a masterclass in eloquence

Wigmore Hall, London
This collegial quartet’s varied programme of Mozart, Bartók and Brahms was most gratifying in its more introspective moments

The Brentano Quartet present the listener with one of those unresolvable but intriguing paradoxes of chamber music dynamics: unlike some quartets, their sound is not overtly dominated by their first violinist. Yet the excellent Mark Steinberg’s purity of tone and precise articulation, which do so much to make the Brentano’s sound so satisfyingly collegial, is at the same time also one of this quartet’s defining characteristics.

This self-effacing interplay ensured there was never anything run-of-the-mill about this varied programme of Mozart, Bartók and Brahms. They began with Mozart’s “Hunt” String Quartet in B flat, K458, bringing a sprightly freshness and vigorous fullness of sound to the bouncing 6/8 opening movement that gives the piece its nickname. However, it was in the more introspective and harmonically precarious music of the adagio that the Brentanos produced their most gratifying playing.

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