San Francisco Classical Voice

The Ives Quartet offered a substantial program on Sunday afternoon in the Florence Gould Theater at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, devoting each half of its program to (arguably) the greatest quartets of two of the greatest quartet composers. Both Bartók's Fourth Quartet and Schubert's Fifteenth share a quality of architectural integrity, a grand design over a lengthy span of time. The Ives Quartet honored this aspect of both works with intelligent, richly-detailed performances, with the nod perhaps to the Schubert.

Opening with the Bartók--no easy feat--the players adopted a slightly grainy tone for the first movement's opening, emphasizing its bitingly close intervals and their outward expansion. Fine attention to balance brought out the imitative textures with utter clarity, and transitional passages were highlighted by subtle changes in dynamics and tone color, handled with equal attention through the ensemble.

The theater's acoustics, which have a noticeable leveling effect on the volume of a performance, had a marked effect on the Bartók. The second and fourth movements, with their emphasis on softer dynamics and more tutti textures, all varied carefully by the quartet, were at home in the dry environment of the hall. In fact, in the hands of the Ives players, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the piece was the opportunity to be drawn in by subtle contrasts in shading and ensemble balance. The limited dynamic range of these parallel inner movements, handled with great skill by the quartet, was revealed as a field of enormous possibility.

But in the work's most forceful moments, the lack of reverberation and general softness of the hall robbed the music of some of its most powerful moments. Despite the intense playing of the quartet, the fifth movement's opening chords and its most intense passages didn't quite have the electrifying, jump-out-of-your-seat quality that this great finale can achieve. This concern aside, the quartet's momentum, fine rhythmic control, and mastery of the work's complex counterpoint were exemplary.

Schubert's final quartet is one of the composer's great late works, a product of a period in which a new depth and expansiveness entered his music. His harmonic imagination is especially generous in this quartet, as surprising modulations and shifts between major and minor appear at a startling rate, especially in the final movement. The players responded to this trait with an energetic approach, introducing the slightest pauses and decrescendi at cadences, then a burst of renewed rhythmic energy with each new harmonic foray.

Although the quality of high drama that is built into the work's faster movements was well emphasized, the ensemble's approach made a case for the slow second movement as the central point of the piece. Cellist Stephen Harrison brought a rich tone and wonderfully natural phrasing to the movement's solo passages, and the ensemble's control of its long lines and extended structure, even through the most hushed sections, conveyed its classical architecture with great effectiveness.

(Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.)

©2001 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved