BLOOMINGTON HERALD TIMES
TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2007

It took two quartets to tango
By Peter Jacobi

Two visiting string quartets, the more burnished and veteran Penderecki and the more brilliant and youthful Biava, came together for breathtaking collaborations in Auer Hall Sunday afternoon, eliciting volleys of cheers from their audience.

Their musical means: works of the much buzzed-about Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov and Russia's foremost 20th century master of chamber music, Dmitry Shostakovich. For the Golijov, a riveting number called "Last Round," the two ensembles, standing, faced each other, group to group, with the Minnesota Orchestra's principal bass player, Peter Lloyd, in between.

Without explanation, the stance could have been construed as a battle in sounds and rhythms, an expression of released anger. But Golijov wrote "Last Round" in 1996 as tribute to an idol, fellow countryman Astor Piazzolla, the creator and king of a new style of tango music, who had died several years earlier. Since Piazzolla referred to his compositions as "danger music" and since he was often at war with Argentina's musical establishment, perhaps the word "battle" in describing the Golijov piece is appropriate, but one chose to think that the performance more appropriately symbolized the tango itself, with each quartet a partner.

What one heard, superbly coordinated and passionately voiced, was propulsive, urgent, sensuous, virile music. What one then heard was early Shostakovich, Two Pieces for String Quartet, creations of an 18-year-old, lively and undoubtedly devilish to play, but play them the Penderecki and the Biava did, with unreserved, unfettered zest.

All this came after intermission. Earlier, the stage belonged to the Penderecki four by them selves. They chose Haydn's Opus -33, No. 1, String Quartet in B Minor to open the concert, finding in its pages a gentler nature, an inviting lyricism and warmth.

The String Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters," of Leos Janacek, elicited an inspired performance from the ensemble. The work limned the composer's autumnal love for a woman who remained cold to his devotion. Its music contains jarring mood swings, tending more toward the disappointed and frustrated than the buoy ant. Also present were suggestions of an agitated and aching dream-like state, perhaps in mimicry of the emotional condition under which Janacek originally wrote his letters. The quartet is compelling, to say the least, as was its interpretation by the Penderecki.

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