by Daniel Hathaway

Anybody who thinks that string quartet concerts can be uneventful — or downright ennui-producing — should have heard the French bad boys who make up Quatuor ébène on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church on April 16. Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure, Mathieu Herzog and Raphaël Merlin took mostly well-mannered quartets by Mozart and Mendelssohn out and gave them a hard ride. Either you hated their interpretations for their sheer wilfulness and distortion or you adored them for their sang-froid and cockiness. And then les garçons flipped a switch during intermission and turned into an astonishingly sophisticated pop/jazz group (chouette alors! — turn down the lights and break out the cabernet!)

You know it’s going to be an odd evening when the “dissonant” introduction to Mozart’s K. 465 quartet goes by without much of a ripple but the happy-sunny musical events that follow raise multiple eyebrows. [Read more…]