ClevelandClassical
022211PacificaQRev
Review
The Pacifica Quartet in Finney Chapel, Oberlin (February 16)
by Nicholas Jones
The splendid Pacifica Quartet, though composed of four young players, is already in itself a chamber group of distinction and maturity, known not only for its long list of awards (from the Naumburg to the Grammy) but also for the breadth and seriousness of its repertoire, not to mention the virtuosity and commitment it brings to every performance. In recent years, the group has ventured — with success — to perform the entire cycle of three of the thorniest composers for the string quartet, Beethoven, Carter, and Shostakovich.Oberlin, where the Pacifica played last week on the Artist Recital Series, is alma mater for violinists Simin Ganatra and Sibbi Bernhardsson, and hometown for cellist Brandon Vamos (whose parents taught at the Oberlin Conservatory). The one non-Oberlin player is violist Masumi Per Rostad. The members of the quartet currently serve as faculty at the University of Illinois.
For the Oberlin gig, the Pacifica chose a rich program of masterworks and played it masterly, though with a couple of changes from the program that had been announced on this website.
They opened with the wonderful F major quartet that Beethoven picked as the opening statement of his first quartet publication, Opus 18. Early Beethoven sounds like his master Haydn, but with a difference, and the Pacifica gave us both the similarities (gracefulness, brilliance, surprise) and the differences (those off-beat sforzandi that Beethoven loved; the resonant moments of silence; the depth of emotion in the slow movement).
Evident throughout the Beethoven were qualities that mark the Pacifica’s playing in general: the expressive handling of musical structure, punctuating key moments with intelligence; the ability to get out of each other’s way; and of course the brilliant display of fast passagework. In that, first violinist Simin Ganatra takes the prize, launching into the daunting last movement with a nonchalant air and a scorching tempo.
The second piece on the program was the last of a series of quartets that Shostakovich dedicated to the members of the Beethoven Quartet; this one, from 1973, was dedicated to cellist Sergei Shirinsky, and appropriately features the cello. Written in the unusual key of F sharp major, the quartet is warm-hearted and humane. Shostakovich began it during a stay in Aldeburgh with Benjamin Britten, and one wonders whether those wide seacoast marshes of Suffolk may have contributed to the open feeling of the quartet. Moments of operatic lyricism may also owe something to Britten’s influence. As with so many quartets (including the Beethoven that opened the program), the slow movement is the emotional center, here an extraordinarily heart-felt Adagio to which cellist Brandon Vamos contributed much of the passion.
Schubert’s great d minor “Death and the Maiden” quartet (Opus 14) followed after intermission. The piece is so named because it takes Schubert’s own song about an eerie and fatal encounter as the basis for an extended theme and variation movement.
The Pacifica interpreted the ominous song-tune with almost uncanny smoothness, building from it an extraordinary architecture. They whisper without sounding wimpy; they assert without being aggressive. Sometimes their dynamics change with lightning speed and accuracy; and at other times their crescendo pulls us towards forte over many measures, like some inexorable tide. Schubert, for all his virtues, is a composer who loved repetition a bit too much; without this kind of dynamic vitality, his music can seem to go on too long. This was emphatically not the case with the Pacifica’s committed and well-planned rendition.
In response to a standing ovation, the quartet encored—senza archi—with the Allegretto pizzicato from Bartok’s fourth quartet.
Though the audience was ample for a February midweek evening, there were empty seats in Finney Chapel. One hopes that the next time the Pacifica come to the Cleveland area, the hall will be packed.
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