RSS 2.0 FeedNovember 11, 2009, Classical
St. Lawrence Quartet: tight ensemble, palpable excitement
Saturday night a 5-alarm fire raged upon the stage of the Folly theatre as the St. Lawrence String Quartet ignited the beauty of three immortal masterpieces by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and then fanned those flames to cosmic perfection. This Quartet snorts the very fire of life into every note it sings.
Saturday night a 5-alarm fire raged upon the stage of the Folly theatre as the St. Lawrence String Quartet ignited the beauty of three immortal masterpieces by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and then fanned those flames to cosmic perfection. This Quartet snorts the very fire of life into every note it sings.
The SLSQ, comprised of violinists Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John, violist Lesley Robertson, and cellist Christopher Costanza is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In residence at Stanford University since 1998, the Quartet enjoys a distinguished pedigree, having been mentored by the Emerson, Juilliard and Tokyo String Quartets.
Their program opened with Haydn's String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 - the first time an Opus 9 Quartet by Haydn has been heard in the 35-year history of The Friends of Chamber Music series, President Cynthia Siebert declared. Its virtuosic first violin part in the hands of Nuttall drove the performance to exude the brilliance of a Paganini concerto. The three accompanying strings stretched their supporting chords in a Viennese agogic that sighed and sang as one instrument. Not a one of them played it safe in this exciting performance - this was Haydn, the revolutionary, declaring once again to the cosmos his irrepressible passion for life.
With the audience's appetite good and whetted for the next work on the program, namely Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, anticipation mounted when they had to wait a bit longer for all the musicians to have the right music on their stands. Quipped Nuttall, as he got up from his chair to go backstage again, "The problem with Henley editions is that they all look identical." In his absence his colleague added, "He doesn't play the first measure - we can start without him." That moment of comic relief aside, the Quartet got down to the serious beauty at hand.
Driving tremolos in the opening led into a fantastically tight and energized first movement, brought to conclusion in electrifying frenzy. Composed after the death of his beloved sister Fanny, Mendelssohn captured the despair of his loss in the pulsating heartbeat motif that emerged in the second and third movements. The second movement began with anguished syncopated heartbeats in the low voices of cello and viola, built up masterfully by the SLSQ, and then wound back into somber sorrow at its end, answered again by the palpitating rhythms of a broken heart. In the third movement, the heartbeats grew into a looming life of their own, relinquished to the dissonance of sorrow, and ended with a sigh. The fourth movement kicked into driving anguish, with the SLSQ delivering big dynamic gradations and trading tightly controlled trills. Superb solos in the cello and second violin spurred the first violinist into an energized tarantella that built dramatically into its roaring conclusion. The genius of Mendelssohn's mature inspiration has been revealed anew by his perfect interpreters, the SLSQ. This reviewer hopes that they will release a CD of the works on this program. Once was not enough.
Beethoven's String Quartet in C-Sharp minor, Op. 131 was revealed in the second half of the program. Its brooding opening was growled in phrases from violin to cello to viola in the timbres of tight tonal sheen, the musical language and sounds of immortal Beethoven at his lonely grumpiest. As if awaking the next morning from a bad night, the SLSQ crafted the ambience of gray breaking light in the second segment in the half-tone higher key of D, and masterfully crafted Beethoven's gradually lifting shift in spirit, that soon soared and scooped. The many sections of the work culminated in the galloping horses rhythm over which ultimately a lyrical line seemed to soar into heaven itself. This was a performance that crackled with electricity, throughout, and brought rousing roars of appreciation from the house.
They were rewarded with the Scherzo of the Ravel Quartet. Pizzicatos volleyed robustly and an extraordinary palette of colors illuminated the superb reading that brought the evening to an electrifying end.
REVIEW:
The Friends of Chamber Music
St. Lawrence Quartet
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Folly Theatre
300 West 12th Street, Kansas City MO
For tickets call 816.561.9999 or online www.chambermusic.org
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