{"id":7025,"date":"2025-11-30T23:29:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T23:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/?p=7025"},"modified":"2026-03-12T23:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T23:44:08","slug":"the-late-quartets-that-werent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/2025\/11\/30\/the-late-quartets-that-werent\/","title":{"rendered":"the late quartets that weren’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t been to a concert at the Wiltshire Music Centre in over 10 years<\/a>. Only a small part of this was accounted for by the pandemic hiatus; mostly it was because I fell off the mailing list for their brochure, which was a useful way of reminding me what was happening.<\/p>\n

We returned for a performance by the former quartet in residence, the Doric String Quartet. They are almost like George Washington’s axe in that they have had a change of 3 of 4 players since I first heard them, and of two players recently.<\/p>\n

The publicity for this concert enticed prospective listeners with the prospect that the quartet would be ‘exploring some of the last pieces [Beethoven] ever penned’<\/a>, Op 135 and Op 132. For me, there was also the chance to compare their interpretation of Op 132 with the one I remember hearing back in 2008<\/a>. It was therefore disappointing to find that the two quartets were replaced by Op 18 no. 3 and Op 59 no. 3. Not that there is anything wrong with those, but two-thirds of the programme, which had been extensively trailed in publicity, was changed at a late stage, apparently because the new lineup wasn’t ready to perform it. Surely they could have realised that a bit earlier? <\/p>\n

I have had something like this happen a few times during the lifetime of this blog. It’s more understandable when it’s due to illness and a replacement performer having to be found. It also happens in my own performances. I think of the time I signed up, and paid, to sing The Kingdom<\/i>, only to find the entire programme changed to one of Russian music. (I have got to sing The Kingdom<\/i> since then.) The consequence was that I was reluctant to join further performances by that choir, in case the repertoire was changed after I’d committed to them (as some of it was!)<\/p>\n

As for the Doric Quartet’s performances, which included the unchanged Op 20 no. 5 quartet of Haydn, we found them accomplished but tending to style over substance, with physical gestures used to elicit audience appreciation. So maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed the late quartets all that much anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t been to a concert at the Wiltshire Music Centre in over 10 years. Only a small part of this was accounted for by the pandemic hiatus; mostly it was because I fell off the mailing list for their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[89,1564,120,164],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7025"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7025"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7088,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7025\/revisions\/7088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.virginiaknight.org.uk\/vhkssinging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}