The Lark Quartet's concert on Thursday evening in Spaulding Auditorium was a promising performance of a new generation string quartet.
They quite competently performed three demanding string quartets: Haydn's Quartet in D major,Beethoven's "Rasumovsky" Quartet in C Major No.3 and a newly commissioned work by Aaron Jay Kernis, "Musica Celestis."
In all three pieces, the knowledge of the music produced highly confident playing, especially in the Beethoven, playing both the Andante and the Allegro molto with conviction. Of all three, they were most compelling in the "Rasumovsky" quartet, ably capturing the Beethovenian Terribilita, a fingerprint of his music, and creating in the menuetto a welcome contrast to the preceeding movements.
In the Kernis', the Quartet was able to find enthusiasm and form where it was not audibly apparent. And they gave a dignity and humour to Haydn that most performances pass up and interpret like warmed-over Mozart.
While the Lark Quartet's enthusiasm for the music is unquestionable, their ideas of period practices and styles were quite dubious. Indeed, it seemed at times that Haydn, Beethoven and Kernis were all contemporaries.
It is very important for world-class musicians to understand, when performing Haydn for example, that vibrato was used sparingly as a dramatic device. The result of its overuse is a startling effect in the Classical Style and Beethoven's "Rasumovsky" C major can hardly be called romantic (the Ninth Symphony and the late string quartets were years away).
Vibrato brings nuance to specific passages and phrases and allows Haydn to highlight sections and enliven repeating themes. The Lark Quartet, however, did exactly the opposite, highlighting passages by not using vibrato.
While this interestingly illustrates an attentiveness to the music, it is not good for the music itself. Even their performance of Beethoven suffered from this uneven balance of the quartet, which often stressed the violins rather than an egalitarian balance among all voices.
