University of Virginia Library

MUSIC

Rare Clarity Of Tone

By TERI TOWE

For many years it has been
the custom of the Tuesday
Evening Concert Series to open
its season with a string quartet
concert. This year, the
Stradivari String Quartet had
been scheduled for the initial
concert, but the group was
forced to cancel its appearance
after one of the violinists hurt
his wrist.

The Composers String
Quartet, a New York based
group, substituted for the
Stradivari String Quartet on
less than one week's notice and
presented a program of works
by Mozart, Beethoven, and
Schubert.

The Composers String
Quartet plays a great deal of
contemporary chamber Music,
and the extraordinary technical
demands that most of this
music makes on musicians
perhaps explains why the
Composers String Quartet has
such fine intonation, such an
excellent sense of ensemble, as
well as a clarity of tone and of
line that is rare, to say the
least.

The reading of the opening
work, the Quartettsatz in C
Minor, D. 703 by Franz
Schubert was thoughtful
though somewhat detached.
The 'cellist, Michael Rudiakov,
displayed from the outset the
clean, accurate, and focused
tone that was to characterize
his playing throughout the
evening.

The interpretation of the
Mozart Quartet in D Minor,
KV 421 one of the six quartets
dedicated to Haydn, was
ascetic and a bit dull on the
whole. The outer movements
were the least successful. The
opening Allegro seemed too
brisk, and the concluding
Allegretto ma non troppo, a
theme with variations, did not
hold together particularly well.

The inner movements on
the other hand, came off quite
well. Although somewhat
understated, the Andante was
appropriately intense, and the
Menuetto was played with just
the right amount of bite and
wit.

In the Quartet in F Major,
Opus 59, No. 1 by Ludwig van
Beethoven, the Composers
String Quartet hit its stride.
The interpretation, which was
thoroughly "Modern" in spirit
and devoid of any mannerisms
or Romanticisms, showed a
complete understanding of the
structure of the work. Great
attention was paid to clarity
and to detail, and the
intonation was excellent.

Particularly remarkable
were the rich clear tone of the
violist, Jean Dupouy, and
Matthew Raimondi's brilliant
execution of the difficult first
violin passage work in the
transitional section between
the third and fourth
movements.