Leonkoro Quartet, Lakeside, Nottingham, 12 October, 2023.

5*****: William Ruff

We all know that classic symptom of growing older: the policemen look younger. But the same couldn’t be true about string quartets, could it? Surely musicians need a fair sprinkling of grey hairs before they have the wisdom and insight to probe the depths of the great composers? Well, if I ever thought that, I don’t now. The four members of the Leonkoro Quartet are still in their twenties, came together only four years ago – but have already taken the chamber music world by storm, winning not only First Prize at the 2022 Wigmore Hall International Competition but no fewer than nine of its special awards too. They really are very special indeed.

They opened their Lakeside concert with the Quartet in G minor written by the 18-year-old Schubert. They stand up to play, giving their playing extra dynamism and an edge-of-the-seat excitement. They produce that uncanny feeling (produced by only the best ensembles) that you are hearing simultaneously four very individual artists melding into one equally distinctive whole. Their unfussy manner belies their painstaking attention to detail: dynamics are superbly judged and controlled; balance is perfect; rhythms are delightfully sprung. And like all the best chamber musicians there is always a sense of civilised dialogue about them, with musical inflections sometimes reminding you of a subtly ironic comment or a slightly raised eyebrow. I especially liked the central Trio section of Schubert’s Minuet, not only elegant but suggesting those shy hesitations on the dance floor. Elsewhere it was the razor-sharp precision of their phrasing and their relish for strong contrasts of mood which added so much to the musical drama.

And drama was certainly at the core of Janacek’s 1st String Quartet, inspired by a Tolstoy story about an unhappy marriage in which a wife has an affair with a violinist with whom she is playing Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. To create Janacek’s extraordinary sound world the Leonkoros had to become four musical actors, sometimes at odds with each other in a galaxy far, far away from Schubertian elegance. The music forms a sort of mini opera of violent outbursts, extreme turbulence and painful anguish. There are disturbing moments as when a serene viola is attacked by a frantic first violin, or when nerves are shredded by eerie playing on the bridges of the four instruments. Whatever the emotional extremes, however, there was always a sense of the Leonkoro Quartet moulding the music and making it their own.

The first of Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets followed after the interval. When the composer wrote it, he broke new ground. It is on a monumental scale, requiring physical stamina as well as the intelligence to negotiate its complex and sophisticated musical arguments. Needless to say, these demands didn’t trouble the Leonkoro Quartet whose grasp of the opening movement’s intricate architecture was total. They were equally persuasive in the following scherzo with its complex structure and dizzyingly dramatic mood changes. And all this was achieved whilst seeming to caress each note, especially in the sublime slow movement.

Huge audience cheers elicited a Purcell Fantasia as encore. This was the second visit of the Leonkoro Quartet to Lakeside: the audience now can’t wait for their third.

Leonkoro Quartet

Jonathan Schwarz (violin), Amelie Wallner (violin), Mayu Konoe (viola), Lukas Schwarz (cello)