San Francisco Classical Voice

The Ives String Quartet delivered a well-intentioned look at the classical and romantic quartet literature on Friday November 19th at Old First Church. Formerly known as the Stanford String Quartet, violinists Roy Malan and Susan Freier, violist Scott Woolweaver, and cellist Stephen Harrison infused this program of quartets by Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn with the requisite technical mastery before an audience of about one hundred chamber music lovers. But even more important than the requisite virtuosity is commitment to the emotional content of the music. This commitment seemed to appear fleetingly in the evening's works.

Beethoven's Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 "Serioso" received the most compelling performance of the evening. The quartet is marked by a dark intensity from the opening five-note motif. Malan, concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, led these dramatic flourishes in the opening movement, marked Allegro con brio, with precision and direction. Malan produces a warm sound that is rich with nuance, and he possesses an ability to vary both texture and color. Malan's flexibility with the left hand made for a wealth of emotional shadings that served Beethoven's dramatic contrasts well.

Cellist Stephen Harrison made the most of his descending phrase to open the Allegretto, ma non troppo. This motif set a tone of foreboding that made an effective contrast with the more hopeful, major sections of the movement. A mysterious fugato section gave ample opportunity for the violinists to play delicate spiccati against a soulful accompanying figure by the viola and cello. The following Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso, a scherzo characterized by heavily accented dotted figurations, gives way to a serene quasi-chorale section.

The final movement opens with an eight-measure introduction marked Larghetto espressivo. The Ives Quartet's careful control of dynamics moved the introduction forward and served as a foreshadowing of the mystery that would unfold in the work's concluding Allegretto agitato. The moments of serenity are interspersed with exclamations from the violin and cello. An uplifting coda section propels the work to a close on an exuberant major scale.

Mozart's Quartet in F Major, K. 590 did not fare as well as the Beethoven. The quartet was written for King Friederich Wilhelm, a competent cellist, at a time when Mozart and his wife Constanza were experiencing considerable anguish. The Ives Quartet's performance failed to move beyond the technical aspects of interpretation, and the audience never glimpsed the emotional context in which the work was created. Mozart gave prominence to the cello in the opening movement, but then shared the melodic material equally between the rest of the instruments. The opening Allegro moderato gave cellist Stephen Harrison a moment to shine, as he took over the theme from the violin, shaping it into a phrase of singular beauty and dramatic intensity.

The Andante, a contemplative section based on a simple rhythmic figure, featured a soaring melody played by Malan. The Menuetto had the traditional dance rhythms of the minuet, but with the additional fillip of Mozart's clever alternation between seven and five bar phrases. However, in the final Allegro, Malan was not in his finest form, as his intonation suffered greatly during a frenzied trading off with violist Scott Woolweaver of a rushing sixteenth note figure. And as the intonation slipped, so too did the drama and character of the movement.

Concluding the program was Mendelssohn's unjustly neglected Quartet in E Flat Major, Op. 12. This work came out of a holiday tour that inspired his Fingal's Cave Overture and the Scottish Symphony, and was reminiscent of Mendelssohn's Octet. The Ives Quartet's interpretation of the Canzonetta, which was popular as a seaprate piece before the whole work gained favor, was elegant and stylish.

(Benjamin Korn is a violinist and performs regularly with the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra. He also serves as Director of Development for the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra.)

©1999 Benjamin Korn, all rights reserved