Nowadays, musicians move around too much, contemplating their own beauty to excess. Do they perform an arpeggio nicely? They want you to make sure you notice. Does a chord vibrate in a particularly photogenic way? They allow themselves a selfie break to ‘enjoy the scenery’. This is impossible with the Ysaÿe. They are on the same side as Brendel, who wears bottle-glass spectacles instead of designer frames and plays Beethoven without the help of a circus performer taming a tiger at the same time, or a tightrope walker in ostrich feathers twirling a hula hoop to ‘update’ this music, which such musicians suppose to be insufficient by itself. Without pretence or artifice, the Quatuor Ysaÿe tackles one of the most perfect pinnacles of the human spirit. And to take this step is to leave elegance behind. For Beethoven, the pulse is part of the music. It imposes a framework of rigour and a lack of a comfort zone that creates the burgeoning music in an objective manner, free from personal sighs, ‘divine’ rallentandos and the facile swooning that overplays emotion. 35 QUATUOR YSAŸE
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