After a collaboration earlier in the year with Quatuor Ébène performing Mendelssohn’s Octet, the Belcea Quartet have turned their attention to a project with Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan. Their programme of Webern, Hindemith, Schoenberg with a splash of Mozart recreates a previous collaboration between Hannigan and the Emerson Quartet which resulted in their CD release Infinite Voyage. Following a punishing nine concert tour taking in Antwerp, Berlin, Paris, Wigmore Hall, London, Madrid, Heidelberg and Copenhagen, is a similar recording project perhaps on the cards? Tonight’s concert in Konzerthaus Dortmund might just be the beginning of their journey.
The programme
The first half featured ravishing Webern and an impassioned Mozart String Quartet No.19, the ‘Dissonance’. It’s Adagio introduction, tapping a freedom of expression unrestricted by the hierarchy of beats; almost like blood pumping around the body.
Hannigan joins the stage
The emotional climax of the evening, however, was Hindemith’s aptly named Melancholie – a work for soprano and string quartet depicting the full horrors of the Western Front where his friend Karl Köhler, to whom the work is dedicated, met his fate. From the outset, Hannigan’s explosive consonants and languid vowels vividly brought to life Christian Morgenstern’s melancholic German text.
On paper, the score looks simple. A crescendo here, a diminuendo there and the occasional change in tempo or meter. But in the hands of masters, this partnership elevated Hindemith’s ode to the dead, into a moment of greatness and poetic devices abounded. Nebelweben’s (Weaving Fog) opening semiquavers became quivering leaves in the morning mist. Dark, despondent pizzicatos to open Dunkler Tropfe (Dark Drop) signalled death was not far away, while long vowel sounds, like the ‘o’ in ‘Tod’ (death) lasted an eternity. Everything felt organic and whole.
The real joy was witnessing the start of an important relationship between voice and viola where Hannigan matched Krzysztof Chorzelski’s pitch and tone, before each parted way.
Turning to Schoenberg
Like Hindemith, Schoenberg too turns to the viola to set the scene in his fiendishly difficult Second Quartet, often reaching for the sky before delving deep. Similarly, he uses wonderful resonances between the violins’ unison octaves, which became shining lights amidst the unfolding chaos as violent pizzicatos vied with Antoine Lederlin’s lyrical cello.
All this contrapuntal mêlée prompted the merest hint of a smile from a serene Barbara Hannigan sitting patiently through the first two movements in her reflective gold. Dortmund’s Greek goddess in all but name!
With the soprano’s entrance, the sadness deepened, but without the desperation of before. Here too, poetic word painting thrilled and surprised. Piercing ‘schreinne’ (shrines) contrasted violently with a seemingly innocent ‘starr’ (stiff) whose three distinct syllables – ‘st-a-rr’ – each had their very own story to tell.
Corina Belcea’s ethereal utterings from on high opened the finale, but Schoenberg’s harmonic twists as Hannigan’s top C dropped down to a bottom B, seemed to grasp the remaining remnants of love, and left the Dortmund audience visibly bereft. Building again, oh so slowly, the viola and cello’s undulations grounded the narrative and gave cause for hope. The words ‘Ich fühle luft’ (I breathe air from another planet) had introduced Schoenberg’s narrative to a shiny new world, literally like an astronaut landing on the moon, before reality sets in. Turning once again to the viola for comfort, the soprano’s final ‘dröhnen’ (whisper) felt profound.
The innate sophistication in this partnership between Barbara Hannigan and the Belcea Quartet is unmistakable. Not just their attention to detail by phrasing even the tiniest fragment, but their exquisite voicing – identifying important notes and instruments by bringing them to the fore.
They are quite simply, an inspiration.
This concert was reviewed in the Konzerthaus, Dortmund on Thursday 12th March, 2026
Read more from Clare
Follow Clare Varney on Facebook or Instagram to read more about Music and Culture
