SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Haydn and Britten: St. Lawrence String Quartet, Marcus Doshi (lighting design), Howard Gilman Performance Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York City, 29.11.2010 (BH)

Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 20, No. 4 (1772)

Britten: String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 36 (1945)

Two elegantly conceived string quartets, written almost 200 years apart, made a captivating program by the St. Lawrence String Quartet for this latest installment of The Movado Hour, an ongoing series at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Marking its 20th anniversary, the quartet has been Ensemble-in-Residence at Stanford University since 1998, and has developed an international following. This hour-long program, delivered to a capacity crowd, showed why.

After an entertaining, impassioned introduction citing Haydn’s durability and the relevance of the six Op. 20 string quartets, violinist Geoff Nuttall led the group in a vivacious reading of the fourth in D major, filled with surprises. Considered by many to be a breakthrough in writing for the genre, these quartets show Haydn writing dialogue for all four instruments conversing equally, rather than being dominated by the first violin. In St. Lawrence’s hands, the initial Allegro di molto was a model of precision, with the high contrasts emphasized to almost comic effect. The players brought out all the profundity in the following Adagio, a set of variations, and here it would be good to cite Marcus Doshi, whose subdued lighting changes throughout the program only magnified the players’ artistry.

The third movement minuet was taken so fast that dancing to it would seem flat-out impossible (though amusing to watch), and likewise, the group took the final Presto at a thrillingly charged pace right up to the end, where the work ends with a surprising whisper. Throughout, the players demonstrated a clean attacks and cutoffs, coupled with uncommon passion, in a model of unanimity of thought that only the best quartets achieve.

Benjamin Britten’s Second String Quartet was written to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell, and offers a fascinating structure, with two complex outer movements surrounding a spiky middle. As if embarking on what would prove to be an emotionally draining voyage, the four players plunged into the long opening like true explorers, with attention to detail marking every measure. The second-movement Vivace stood in prominent relief, an acerbic, high-spirited interlude before the final movement, which proved even more profound than the first. A set of 21 variations, the Chacony finds Britten tense and sad, and here the St. Lawrence found vast wells of emotion, again enhanced with Doshi’s pools of light, eloquently illuminating the composer’s shadows.

Bruce Hodges