Jonathan Dove’s new work, which received its first London performance in this 15th anniversary concert by the Sacconi Quartet, is an unusual and timely one. Scored for tenor and string quartet, it sets English translations by Anne-Marie McManus of text from the Syrian poet Ali Safar’s A Black Cloud in a Leaden White Sky, or Death by Stabs of Sorrow.
Safar and McManus have distilled elements of the tragic Syrian experience into words that are simple, direct and without any hint of rhetoric or sensation. Dove has succeeded in setting them to music that allows their plainness and understatement to register to maximum effect while maintaining a striking character of its own.
The string writing moves back and forth between painful intensity and frozen introspection, with many subtle shades in between. The tenor line – here presented by Mark Padmore with immaculate artistry, and a technique so finely honed that one scarcely noticed it – amplifies the eloquent candour of the originals.
The overall impact of the work and its performance was profound, an unforgettable example of the power of art to convey something terrible through an expression that is paradoxically in itself beautiful.
Dove’s piece took up the entire second half. The Sacconis led up to it with an account of Mozart’s Hoffmeister Quartet in which their fine balance and near flawless ensemble provided the bedrock for a graceful yet rhythmically vital interpretation; and a performance of Mendelssohn’s great F minor Quartet whose fury and ferocity set the scene for what was to come.
