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FESTIVAL REVIEW
"Mozart and the String Quartet" Orion String Quartet July 31, 2006
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Mozart's Stars By Robert Commanday
Two of the most important musical influences in Mozart's life were celebrated in the best way on Monday in the third program of the Music@Menlo Festival in Palo Alto's St. Mark's Episcopal Church. The celebrant was the Orion String Quartet, which created a host of new admirers in a region where, heretofore, it has only made one appearance.
The influences on Mozart were, of course, Bach and Haydn — Bach, from whose inspiration he developed a grasp of contrapuntal writing that deepened his music immeasurably, and Haydn, whose music inspired him in every facet. First came Mozart's arrangements of five fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, K. 405 (Nos. 2, 7, 9, 8, and 4). Each is of a different temper, the order seeming to dictate a sense that they form movements of a single work. Normally you wouldn't think of a “pure” fugue as having such an expressive effect but these do, and the performances found the character of each without juicing or otherwise romanticizing. The voicing, the evenness, and interplay of each part, was both clear and sensitively done, and the rendition was most graceful. (The Orion violinists, Daniel and Todd Phillips, alternate in the leader position in a gracious, brotherly manner. The younger, Todd, was in the first chair for these fugues.)
A fugue Mozart originally wrote for two pianos became the second part of the Adagio and Fugue in C Minor for String Quartet, K. 546 (1788). He thought so much of it that he actually started to orchestrate the work. No wonder. The Orions gave it its full Baroque intensity, the Adagio with a characteristic overturelike, jagged rhythm, and the fugue's three-measure but two-faced subject creating a dramatic urgency. The String Quartet in E-flat, K. 428, is one of the six “children” Mozart dedicated to Haydn, who he revered as mentor, “father,” and “best friend.” While drawing inspiration from the older man's great models — in particular, his six “Russian” Quartets, Op. 33 — Mozart's compositions clearly struck out on their own, as in the harmonic richness of this E-flat, the third of the set of six. The opening theme, with its reach and twist, must have caught Haydn by surprise. The long-breathed andante, with its pressure nuances, and the menuetto — an affectionate takeoff on Haydn's minuet movements with inside musical jokes and the whirligig finale — are all choice and pure Mozart. The Orion played it marvelously, refined, tasteful and with matchless ensemble. The top-notch violist and cellist are Steven Tenenborn and Timothy Eddy.
The Orion String Quartet The program concluded with a masterpiece that ranks alongside Mozart's greatest piano concertos, the String Quintet in C, K. 515 (1787), with Paul Neubauer as the second viola. The added viola voice seems to unleash an expansion of the music, to a breadth that frees it. The Andante's eloquence aspires to the operatic, as in Don Giovanni, but with a stop along the way, in the Andante, where the duet between first violin and viola evokes the Sinfonia Concertante for those two instruments, also in E-flat (K. 364). The playing was expressive and stylish — all that could be desired. The Orion shares company with the best of them and must return, to San Francisco.
A treat before the program began, and following the Music@Menlo practice, came in a Prelude Performance featuring two works played by seven of the 15 members of its “International Program Artists.” These advanced young musicians are already engaged in careers, but are resident here for master class study and performances. (In addition, there are 27 young performers, ages eight to 18, studying and performing here.) The first was an inspired performance of Gabriel Fauré's Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 45. Much of the electricity and spark came from the superior and live-wire pianist Gloria Chien. The others were also “carried away” — Bella Hristova, violin; Edward Klorman, viola; Jacqueline Choi, cello — and their ensemble did their teachers, and especially Fauré, credit. The work has exceptional rhythm and drive, exceeding earlier Fauré works in that quality, as well as thematic intricacy and overall unity. With recurrent themes, it is Fauré's first cyclical work. It is also highly expressive, in a rhapsodic way — which these young artists captured. Or more accurately, it captured them. The music has the happy quality of being constantly reinvented and modified, and yet everything flows effortlessly. With all the warmth and passion in this composition, there is no romantic excess in it except when excessive players take advantage. Klorman and Choi made the most of Fauré's expressive gifts to their instruments. With all its passion (the sublime lullaby of the Adagio offers the only calm), the Second Piano Quartet was made for young artists and they took advantage. The second Prelude Performance, Mozart's B-flat Piano Trio, K. 502, was a disappointment. The pianist Maya Hartman kept the pedal down too much and led the affair too fast, without inflection and not nuanced to any noticeable degree. It produced an unfortunately level playing field. The cellist Nicholas Canellakis showed talent, while the violin of Nicholas Beer, clear and pleasing, did not speak out and was unassertive.
(Robert Commanday, founding editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle from 1965 to 1993, and before that a conductor and lecturer at UC Berkeley.)
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