The Herald-Times
June 30, 2006

Deft performance deserves exclamation in praise
By Peter Jacobi

An audience regular at IU chamber music events, on departure after the Penderecki Quartet's Wednesday night program in Auer Hall, somewhat breathlessly commented, "They're amazing."

The adjective implies an element of surprise, and surprise no longer seems fitting for an ensemble that's come visiting half a dozen times But the reaction was understandable. These four musicians - violinists Jeremy Bell and Jerzy Kaplanek, violist Christine Vlajk, and cellist Simon Fryer - have come to inhabit an important place in the IU Summer Music Festival.

Their second and last concert of the season followed standard practice, containing works from three major periods: Classical (Mozart's B-Flat Major String Quartet), Romantic (Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Opus 44) and Impressionistic (Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor, Opus 10), an agreeable and balanced blend.

What turns the Penderecki's concerts into events is the ability of its members, an ability common to only the very best of chamber groups, to realize both delineation and convergence in the ensemble's performances. Each player can revel in the comfort of his or her own line; at the same time, the four become one, a unit inseparably merged. That's what all chamber ensembles aim for but far fewer achieve.

A gracefully voiced Larghetto and a quicksilver brilliance in the surrounding movements marked the Penderecki's sweet reading of the Mozart, which opened the program. Nothing in the work's presentation seemed forced or stilted, as too often happens with carefully practiced Mozart. Here, the music's natural ebullience remained fully intact.

Debussy's one and only quartet, the G Minor, is a marvel of tonal splendors and free form daring. It's all about atmospherics and textures, much like Monet in sound, and this listener can but praise the Penderecki's interpretation, one both intelligent and impassioned. What's more, the music's complexities had been deftly converted to a lucid, splendiferously hued canvas.

For the concert closing Schumann E-Flat Major Piano Quintet, the ensemble called upon the crackerjack Jeannette Koekkoek to supply the critical keyboard element, which she handled expertly, never allowing the prominent piano part to overwhelm the strings. Consequently, Schumann's lyrical score retained its conceived architecture. Not only that, but the performance emerged as rich in warmth and gusto.

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