Ives Quartet - Performance Review

On Friday evening at the Ross School in East Hampton, music lovers of all stripes were offered a delightful selection of forward -- and backward -- looking string quartets, admirably performed by the Ives quartet.

The concert was another in a continuing series of lectures, concerts, master classes, and the like being offered to the community by the school, which make a fine contribution to our late-winter intellectual and musical life.

The Ives Quartet, which for 14 years was the ensemble in residence at Stanford University, has named itself well. I cannot imagine a better emissary for bringing the (still undervalued) works of Charles Ives to light. Attractive, intelligent, and energetic, the quartet is up to the challenge of making the works of this presumably inaccessible American genius accessible to the average concertgoer.

The performance opened with short talk by the cellist, Stephen Harrison, who explained that the works chosen could be characterized as either a forward-looking work of mature artist (Beethoven) or as backwards-looking works of young composers (Mendelssohn and Ives).

Indeed, in the quartets performances of the Beethoven F minor Quartet, Op. 95, which opened the program, it pointed toward the complex and profound late quartets, especially, to my ears, the Op. 131 Quartet in C sharp minor.

Aside from some infelicities of intonation in the first movement and a lack of energy in the second, the performance was otherwise magical.

The two Ives works on the program, a youthful "Chorale" that looks back to Brahms and the "Intermezzo" from the cantata "The Celestial Country, " were impeccably executed. Mr. Harrison's cello was especially moving in the moody opening of the "Chorale," while the dynamic interaction of Roy Malan, first violin, and Susan Freier, second violin, in the "Intermezzo" brought out the coiled tension and turbulent emotion that infuses the middle section of what otherwise might appear to be a derivative late-Romantic exercise.

However, in the Mendelssohn E flat major Quartet (Op. 12), which completed the evening, all of the formidable forces of the ensemble were perfectly aligned to give us an incomparably magnificent performance.

In their hands, the first movement allegro non troppo was sweet and innocently well-rounded, while the funny little gypsy-like melody of the canzonetta was exuberant and simultaneously compact.

In the finale, molto allegro e vivace, underscored by the intensity of Scottt Woolweaver's fine viola playing, the quartet realized perfectly a dramatic exposition of the explosive power of the young Mendelssohn's love of life and repressed sexual energy.

And in the coda, playfully reminding us of Beethoven's tricks and surprises, I heard the radiant playing of a quartet confident and relaxed, on the edge of becoming one of the greats of the next generation.

Ives Quartet
Performance Review

Radiant Quartet

Ives Quartet Performance Review

Radiant Quartet

Ives Quartet
Performance Review