University of Virginia Library

MUSIC

Cleveland Quartet Performance Merits Encore

By TERI TOWE

The 1971-1972 season of the
Tuesday Evening Concert Series
opened night before last in Cabell
Hall Auditorium with a performance
by the Cleveland Quartet of a group
of string quartets by Haydn,
Bartok, and Brahms. It was indeed
an suspicious beginning.

The Cleveland Quartet is a
relatively new group, and, on the
basis of its performance on Tuesday
night, I'd say there is no need to
search any further for the successor
to the Budapest Quartet which
disbanded nearly four years ago.
While no quartet can "replace" the
Budapest, the Cleveland Quartet
has many of the qualities of its
predecessor, as well as a certain
"modernity" that the Budapest did
not have and could not have had
since its members grew up and were
schooled in a much different musical milieu.

From the first movement of
Franz Joseph Haydn's Quartet in D
Major, Opus 75, No. 5, it was quite
apparent that the Cleveland Quartet
has a unity of ensemble and musical
purpose and a richness of tone that
is granted only to the greatest string
quartets. The approach to the
Haydn composition was a streamlined,
"no-nonsense" view, totally
devoid of what are to most ears
today the excesses of Romanticism.
The tempi were brisk without being
rushed; the music was given a
chance to breath; and the dynamic
gradations and the phrasing were
subtle and quite splendidly
conceived. The only flaw, and it
was a slight one, was an intonation
difficulty at the outset of the last
movement.

Great Gusto

While I dislike the music of Bela
Bartok, I would be the last to deny
that his Quartet No. 6 is a carefully
crafted composition that justly
deserves its place among the great
20th century string quartets. The
Cleveland Quartet played it with
great gusto, and I found myself
almost liking Bartok. I was
particularly impressed by the
technical ability of the cellist
whose flawless executions of
difficult passage work in the high
positions was amazing.

After intermission, the audience
was treated to a performance of the
C Minor Quartet. Opus 51. No. 1,
by Johannes Brahms. The Cleveland
Quartet's performance of this
delightful but rather infrequently
played work showed that, although
its outlook is "modern", the group
is quite capable of delivering a
stylish and moving reading of a
work that is Romantic in character.
The reading was subtle and
restrained, but in no way was it
subtle or unyielding.

Remarkable!

Cleveland String Quartet: Unity And Richness

The Cleveland Quartet is quite
simply incapable of producing ugly
or coarse sounds: the tone of its
members, particularly of the violist,
is remarkable, and the quality of
the group's interpretation and of
their ensemble are splendid. I
address my closing remarks directly
to the Board of the Tuesday
Evening Concert Series, and I
believe that most of the members of
the audience will join me.

May we please have the
Cleveland Quartet back again next
year?