Santa Barbara Independent
Thursday, May 12, 2005

The Gentler Pendulum
By Joseph Woodard
The Penderecki Quartet at Santa Barbara Museum of Art on Wednesday May 4 2005

The Penderecki String Quartet happily leads a double life. Blessed and sanctioned by the great Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki, it has recorded his complete quartet works, and has devoted considerable faith and energy to the contemporary music cause. Simultaneously, it also flexes its artistry on standard repertoire turf, to dazzling ends. Often, one or the other prevails. Annual visits to Los Angeles often involve two different concerts - one per mode.

It was the latter persona, mostly, that arrived in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's lovably intimate auditorium last Wednesday. The closing event of the museum's remarkable spring chamber music series, the Penderecki followed up last year's concert here with a rousing and reflective program of mid-period Haydn and late-period Shostakovich and Beethoven.

One message tucked into its dualistic agenda relates to challenging stereotypes: contemporary music isn't all scary, and the standard repertoire isn't as stiff as legend would have it, or as closed-eared followers of either camp might insist. Haydn's Quartet in C, Op.54 No.2, dedicated to a Gipsy fiddler, is full of life, wit, and the master's surprising twists, including a rapturous slow/fast/slow final movement equipped with a pregnant measure-long pause, which was also inserted into the opening movement.

Shostakovich's thirteenth quartet, written in 1970 while he was ill and gloomy, was penned for the then-violist of the venerable Borodin Quartet (heard here only last month incidentally). A ripe showcase for Christine Vlajk, the Penderecki's subtle and compelling violist, the piece is one long adagio movement working its way from dark brooding into more agitated, restless states, while also turning abstract at times. Along with eccentric pizzicato asides, players occasionally scrape and knock their instruments, befitting the composer's unsettled mood. Solo viola finishes it off with a pleading part, leading to a final piercing high note.

Also quietly intense and moving, Beethoven's Quartet in C Sharp Minor, Op.131 dates from the end of his life, in the heart of his deafness. The group's performance was deeply moving, maneuvering through the shifting moods to its minor mode finale, closing on octaves of the tonic. An unusual degree of empathy was testament to its time together, a common resolve, and an infectious passion for whatever material it chooses to take on. A quick excerpt from a Tan Dun piece served as a teasing encore, whetting the appetite to hear the other side of this group's personality. Maybe next year.

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