By Christopher Halls

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They say a week in politics can be a long time, but try 10 years in chamber music.
No one can appreciate the magnitude of that commitment more than Hong Kong’s foremost string quartet, the Cong Quartet, as they reflect on a decade of challenges, member changes and the well-earned awards along the way.
The quartet’s name is a combination of the founding members’ last names and a play on the fact that the players grew up in Hong Kong, where they made music together during their teenage years.
Marking the anniversary of the quartet’s inception back at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in 2015, today’s members – violinists Francis Chik Yiu-ting and Fan Hiu-sing, violist Caleb Wong and cellist Cheng Yan-ho – celebrated the milestone with a concert at Hong Kong City Hall on September 7.

Friends and past members joined them on stage in a programme of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and the world premiere of a work by Hong Kong composer Daniel Lo Ting-cheung.
An approaching typhoon and a heavy downpour dampened things slightly, however, prompting an eleventh-hour decision to cut out Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor in the first half.
Beethoven’s String Quartet No 10 – nicknamed the “Harp” – survived unscathed. A Cong favourite, its message of hope and endurance, for it was written in a time of war and hardship, also seemed apt for an evening that paid tribute to past members and their loyal audience.
But that ironclad commitment borne of 10 years of hard slog was exactly what came through in the reading of the work by the quartet, who are now based in Hong Kong and the Netherlands.
A mysterious opening, subtly shaded in tonal colour, led to an Allegro that was organic in interpretation. The players’ poignant harp-like plucking, as the nickname of the piece suggests, was finely balanced with the pizzicati as notes of the arpeggios were alternated.
Thoughtfully weighted chords featured often in their contemplative Adagio as well, with violinist Chik showing his diverse and expressive sound palette, both with and without vibrato.

The Presto veritably “rocked” with its edgy articulation and sudden sforzandi before things culminated in a finale of thought-provoking, tastefully played variations.
Following a brief break came the world premiere of prolific composer Lo’s Echoes of the Wasteland – after T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, which was specially composed for the Cong Quartet’s anniversary for 16 string parts, or four string quartets.
Echoes proved both fascinating as a soundscape and an ideal vehicle to showcase sounds from the quartet’s past and present members and friends, including Hong Kong’s Romer String Quartet.
In Lo’s exploration of time versus human perception, the complex shifts in rhythmic patterns of triplets, quintuplets and 16th notes that moved between the quartets were executed with great skill, which, given the lack of a conductor or a clear pulse for the 16 players to orient themselves with, was no mean feat.
Capping off with even more Cong “community spirit” came Mendelssohn’s brilliant Octet in E-flat major. The score, handed to his violin teacher Eduard Rietz as a birthday present, also included the instruction by a 16-year-old Mendelssohn to “be played by all the instruments in the style of a symphony”.

For this, founding violinist Camille Poon Ka-mei and Ayaka Ishiwatari – the longest serving violinist after Chik – also joined the party, together with violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez and cellist Sterling Elliott, and the performance chugged along joyfully.
Fan pushed his tone a fraction too far and sounded a tad forced in places during the opening Allegro moderato – he was the first fiddle here, switching with Chik – and some more presence in sound from violinists Poon and Ishiwatari was needed on the opposite side of the stage. But the pulse was nevertheless infectious and the passages of lyricism were delightful.
Both Cheng and Elliott were ever-solid and accommodating bass voices, blossoming in the Andante with poise and finesse. With violists Wong and Hernandez, the ensemble’s Scherzo really sparkled.
Despite some muddiness in the sound clarity as the Presto began, things soon sat tight in the saddle and made for an exciting finale.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the Cong Quartet’s credo that “the humanistic experience of chamber music is a treasure to the community” resonated fully on this occasion.
Cong Quartet – 10th Anniversary Concert, Hong Kong City Hall (Concert Hall). Reviewed: September 7.