The joy of a string quartet with the Mandelring Quartett

Mandelring Quartett
Sebastian Schmidt, Nanette Schmidt, Andreas Willwohl, and Bernhard Schmidt

The Berlin based Mandelring Quartett treated Manila audiences to the joy of hearing a string quartet performance characterized by an extremely balanced, tight, precise, and cohesive playing rarely seen on the local stage.

Composed of violinists Sebastian Schmidt and Nanette Schmidt, violist Andreas Willwohl, and cellist Bernhard Schmidt, the quartet presented a program that was thematically linked by the String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K.465 “Dissonanzen-Quartett” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The Mozart piece, with its purity and transparency, served as a great introduction to the Mandelring’s sound. I am typically drawn to the middle tones (2^nd violin and viola) rather than the outer ones and the quartet’s balanced playing made it easy for me to pick out those tones that add texture and depth to the overall sound. It was amazing to hear a quartet produce such resonating tones with just four musicians on stage.

This was soon followed by the world premiere of Jeffrey Ching’s Quartett-Dissonanzen. Meant to be a sequel to Mozart’s Dissonanzen-Quartett, this piece was composed for and dedicated to the Mandelring Quartett. Strains of the preceding Mozart that was still fresh in my mind made this more palatable than other Jeffrey Ching works that I’ve seen and heard before. The most interesting parts for me were the two fugues, the first had all four instruments muted as if the music was contained and itching to go out. At the second fugue, the mutes were off but the music was an inversion of the previous one. It was as if the music crossed to a mirror dimension and got transformed. There were some parts in the piece when the quartet did some bowing and plucking action without making contact with the strings. I know that these were notated on the score but I won’t pretend that I understood what those meant.

With the Dissonanzen pieces done and over with, it was time for me to relish Antonín Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 "American" which I consider as the little brother to his New World Symphony. No offense to Mozart, but I find this piece more appealing and charming as it has more character in it which the Mandelring was able to fully showcase. I also savored watching the quartet in action give the minutest of cues to each other. It was almost that each has a sixth sense of the others. Glorious also were the crescendos done with such balance that it brought me goosebumps. Sadly that this piece didn’t last that long. But they indulged the audience with more Dvořák with their encore of his Waltz in A major, Op. 54 No. 1.

RAd with the Mandelring Quartett

I am extremely pleased to have seen the Mandelring Quartett perform in here since it’s rare to see chamber music performances, especially by string quartets, by those who perform regularly and exclusively as such. Typically, musicians in here just form groups for a specific concert and then go their separate ways soon after. This often results in performances by a not so cohesive group and it shows that they’re individuals who just gathered to play this certain piece. But it wasn’t the case with the Mandelring Quartett’s performance. They may be four musicians, but they played as one. I wish that I was able to attend their masterclass the morning after but the early time didn’t allow me to catch it.

Lastly, it was unfortunate that Jeffrey Ching wasn’t present to witness the world premiere of his work. That meant also missing the chance to discuss the work with him over drinks right after the concert which we had done before a few times.