Los Angeles Piano Quartet
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This and much more came together Tuesday evening in Werner Recital Hall at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as the L.A. Piano Quartet performed the first concert of 2012 for Chamber Music Cincinnati.
It was a well chosen program, with the Cincinnati premiere of Steven Stucky's Piano Quartet, written for the L.A. Quartet in 2005, Gabriel Faure's Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor and Mozart's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 493. Making it even more of an occasion was the return to Cincinnati of violinist Yehonatan Berick, a CCM graduate who joined the L.A. Quartet in 2009.
The opening Mozart showed the musicians to be well-matched, tonally and temparamentally. Berick, 43 -- who looks like a young Itzhak Perlman -- drew the listener in at once with his silken sound, while the group's nuanced and exquisitely precise ensemble playing worked as a unit to create a perfect classic introduction to the program. Pianist Xak Bjerken recalled Mozart's piano concertos in the finale, where the composer allows the instrument to shine virtuosically.
Mozart was a good companion for Stucky's Quartet in that both stake out new directions, Mozart for the piano quartet, which he crafted into the democratic ensemble piece it is today, Stucky as his first essay in the genre. They are, of course, quite different in language and structure. Stucky's work is a single movement, broken down into sub-sections. Bjerken introduced it (very eloquently) in remarks to the crowd as beginning in a "gnarly, granitic" Copland-like manner before becoming Brahmsian, even Gershwinian and"smoochy."
It began dramatically (risoluto) with a big chord in the piano, Bjerken creating the "bell-like" tones Stucky refers to in his program notes against extremely fluid playing by Berick, violist Katherine Murdock and cellist Steven Doane. There was a rapid, almost sinister section that began softly with spiccato bowing in the strings, then waxed jazzy in the piano against pizzicato accompaniment, then returned to spiccato figurations. In the final section, the quartet created beautiful, hazy sounds, with muted strings against piano trills (and vice versa), before concluding as it began. In summary, this was an "accessible" (so-called) work that should have legs, especially as advocated by the L.A. Piano Quartet.
Faure's Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major followed intermission. It was a performance filled with passion and breath-taking sonorities (though less memorable melodic content per se than some of his other music). The work began with a yearning, turbulent Allegro that recalled Brahms and brought forth some gorgeous blends among the four instruments. There was lively interchange in the Scherzo, and violist Murdock distinguished herself with her beautiful introduction to the Adagio. One could detect a hint of the future Debussy in the Allegro molto finale, which wound its way to a brisk Coda at the end.
The Quartet encored with a dreamy performance of the slow movement of Robert Schumann's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major.
Chamber Music Cincinnati continues its season March 20 in First Unitarian Church, Avondale with the Morgenstern Piano Trio performing Debussy's Piano Trio in G Major, Bernstein's Piano Trio (1937) and Brahms' Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8. Information at www.cincychamber.org or call (859) 581-6877.