Word: quartets
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There was no shuffling of programs. No peeking at watches. No glancing at the hairdo of the woman across the aisle. When the Guarneri String Quartet came to Boston last Friday, they held an entire audience in captivating. The effect was a feeling of anticipation that made it seem as though you were not in Jordan Hall, but in a Sony Theatre. As patrons sat with their necks outstretched and their shoulders leaning forwards, they resembled an audience that might have been anticipating Bruce Willis to defuse a bomb or Keanu Reeves to board a bus--not four smallish string...
...Guarneri String Quartet has been hailed as "one of the world's most elegant chamber ensembles." The quartet, founded in 1964, has the distinction of being the world's oldest string quartet to feature the same original players. And, as you might imagine, 34 years of playing together reverberates in the Quartet's sound...
...conveyed in moments when the ensemble sounds not like four distinct instruments, but like one single voice that is guided by the same rhythmn and timing--and more importantly, by the same vision and spirit. What is remarkable is that this doesn't come at the sacrifice of the quartet's many personalities. Somewhere between the pauses and rests, between the crescendos and dimenuendos, the players' personality seeps through. And while there is an intrinsic level of formality in the performance of any string quartet (underscored by the tuxedos of the musicians and the gilded architecture of the halls they...
Many of these moments emerged in their first piece, Haydn's Quartet in D Major, Opus 20. The second movement, Un poco adagio affectuoso brought a confluence of musical constraint and emotional effervescence. In giving the upper melody to the cello, the bass line to the viola and a flirtation of rising and falling scale passages to the first and second violins, Haydn's piece created a mood that the quartet conveyed as sad, thoughtful and full of wonder. While the fourth movement, Presto e scherzando presented a direct contrast--with its expulsions of happiness in the form of harmonic...
Although their third and final piece, Debussy's Quartet in G minor, Opus 10, lacked focus and feeling in the first movement, the quartet quickly recovered--and by the second movement, Assez vif et bien rythme, played a sound that (like its French direction would suggest) was lively, rhythmic and lyrical. But perhaps more importantly, it was fresh. Despite the practice that first violinist Arnold Steinhardt characterizes as "hours and hours of brute labor," the quartet did on Friday what makes them renowned: they conveyed spontaneity. The result was a sound that through rehearsal did not become tenderized and beaten...