March 9, 2025
Spivey Hall
Morrow, Georgia – USA
Adam Barnett-Hart & Brendan Speltz, violins; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello; Boris Giltburg, piano.
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
Béla BARTÓK: String Quartet No.3 in C♯ minor
Johannes BRAHMS: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
Mark Gresham | 11 MAR 2025
On Sunday at Spivey Hall, the Escher String Quartet and pianist Boris Giltburg delivered a late afternoon of bold contrasts and virtuosic intensity in a program that ranged from Beethoven’s introspective final piano sonata to Bartók’s tightly wound String Quartet No. 3 and Brahms’ monumental Piano Quintet in F minor.
Pianist Boris Giltburg (credit: Sasha Gusov)
Giltburg opened the program with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op 111, a late-period work of profound expressivity and structural ingenuity. The Russian-born Israeli pianist approached the stormy opening movement with muscular precision, maintaining clarity even in the sonata’s most turbulent passages.
The second and final movement, the transcendent “Arietta,” unfolded with an organic, meditative lyricism. Giltburg’s phrasing underscored the movement’s forward-looking harmonic shifts, highlighting the sonata’s departure from classical form and its foreshadowing of Romantic and even modern sensibilities.
The Escher String Quartet—violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Brendan Speltz, violist Pierre Lapointe, and cellist Brook Speltz—brought an equally focused intensity to Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3. The shortest of the Hungarian composer’s six quartets, the single-movement work is a study in concentrated energy, dense counterpoint, and rhythmic drive.
The ensemble handled its abrupt shifts and biting dissonances with taut precision, emphasizing Bartók’s penchant for folk-inspired motifs and extended instrumental techniques. Their seamless communication ensured that the work’s fragmented structure never lost its underlying cohesion, delivering a performance that balanced technical rigor with expressive urgency.
Despite their stylistic and temporal differences, Beethoven’s Op. 111 and Bartók’s Third String Quartet share a spirit of radical innovation and formal compression. Beethoven’s final sonata distills a wealth of harmonic and thematic development into just two movements, eschewing convention to achieve a transcendent synthesis of form and emotion.
Similarly, Bartók’s third quartet condenses its intricate counterpoint and folk-inspired sonorities into a compact single-movement structure. Both works explore extremes of texture and dynamics, demanding a high degree of interpretive depth from performers while challenging audiences with their daring departures from tradition.
The evening concluded with Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, a work that began as a string quintet before the composer reworked it into its now-familiar form. Giltburg joined the quartet for a reading that captured both the work’s symphonic breadth and its chamber-like intimacy.
The first movement’s brooding intensity gave way to a richly textured “Andante,” where the ensemble’s warm, blended tone provided contrast to the preceding turbulence. The “Scherzo” bristled with rhythmic vitality, while the finale’s intricate interplay between piano and strings was executed with remarkable cohesion. Giltburg’s powerful yet nuanced touch complemented the quartet’s lyrical phrasing, making for a dynamic and emotionally resonant conclusion to the program, drawing an enthusiastic response from the Spivey Hall audience. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Escher Quartet: escherquartet.com
- Boris Giltburg: borisgiltburg.com
- Spivey Hall: spiveyhall.org
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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Escher Quartet and Giltburg deliver contrasts, virtuosity, and expressive depth at Spivey Hall • 11 Mar 2025
