Reviewed: The seven words of Christ on the Cross, 0p.51 - Hayden Hugh Lane Gallery.
What with Handel at Christmas and Bach at Easter, Haydn's seven meditations on biblical texts, his String Quartet Op. 51, can easily be overlooked. So the Easter Sunday recital by the Hibernia Trio and Michael d'Arcy was all the more welcome and their deeply felt performance made the work's comparative neglect all the more surprising. That this wonderful music should be offered for free, by Dublin Corporation in the Hugh Lane Gallery, supports Dublin's claim to be a cultural city.
Though the Seven Words are arranged as seven sonatas with an introduction and finale, there is a feeling of freedom about the work. The composer, no longer respecting the conventional four movements of the string quartet, as it might be Sonata, Variations, Minuet and Rondo, has chosen to write seven slow movements and this has allowed him an unaccustomed space to develop his thoughts. The movements are marked largo, grave, adagio, lento, etc, but the treatment of the themes is skilfully diversified and the textures are never turbid. The music can be said to be a dignified commentary on such texts as "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", or "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsake me?" and the performance was such that the biblical resonances were always present.
Only in the finale, the Terremoto or earthquake, is the reflective mood put aside and the marking is "Presto et con tutta la forza". This brief episode of musical pictorialism seems at first out of place but it did help to bring a rapt and attentive audience back to Earth.
