The Charlotte Observer
Sunday February 14, 1999

String quartet moves among works of 3 composers with ease
By Dean Smith
(music writer)

How do you get from Mozart to Beethoven? If you're the Penderecki String Quartet, through Shostakovich. That's the route the ensemble took in its concert Saturday at Queens College.

It was a satisfying performance of a significant program that held in perfect balance three late quartets by those composers at their maturest: From Mozart's in D major, k. 575; to Shostakovich's No. 11, Op. 122; to Beethoven's in A minor, Op. 132. Refinement was the thread that bound those disparate works. Rather than, say, the drama of Guarneri of the sheen of the Tokyo, the Canada-based Penderecki is an elegant ensemble, its performance Saturday thoroughly considered.

Pairing the Mozart and Shostakovich works was a stroke of brilliance borrowed from the latter's North American premiere in 1967 at Michigan State (One of the violinists then, Olive Parks, was in the audience!). By applying Mozartean restraint to the contemporary work - even the smallest glissando was measured, never tossed off - we could hear dissonances, for example, not as angry but just wounded. Its final, sustained high note's fade to silence was like an unblinking gaze into a cold wind. It could bring tears.

The challenges of the Beethoven can't be summed up in this short notice, but the musicians shone as individuals - especially gregarious violinist Jeremy Bell - and as a cooperative. The slow movement that stretches out like a meadow, as sunny and tender a moment as you'll find in Beethoven, flowered in this ensemble's hands.

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