Concert Review: Vienna Classical String QuartetSeptember 3, 2010, Shenzhen Concert Hall
"Vienna Classical String Quartet"
Haydn-beethoven-Shostakovich-Dvorak
The quartet (info here) is formed of members of the VPO, and the concert is part of a 3-part series at the SZ Concert Hall, the rest of the two featuring the concertmaster and celli. The name of this string quartet is surely improvised. They did not call themselves the VPO string quartet (like the old Decca recording ensemble). Interestingly, there's a Vienna String Quartet from South Africa! A search on the internet came up with nothing, except confirming Daniel Forschauer, Marian Lesko, Wolf-Dieter Rath and Gerhard Kaufmann are surely bona fide members of the VPO.
Immediately, in the opening Haydn "Serenade Quartet", a famous but spurious work likely by Hofstetter that still carries the catalog number Op3/5, the foursome showed its mettle as bearers of the Viennese tradition. The ensemble sound was sweetness incarnated; lines were fluent and elegant; inner details finely illuminated and impeccably balanced. I have never heard better Haydn. While the perfect ensemble continued to bring pleasure in the less often played Beethoven Op18/4, one did feel a little more sturm und drang would have been welcome.
The second-half opened with a finely judged Shostakovich morsel, Adagio-Allegro, and culminated in an incomparably elegant performance of Dvorak's "American" Op, 96. As in the Beethoven, the quartet did not wear their heart on their sleeves, but thier finely chiselled performance was monumental on its own terms. For encores, they brought down the house with an inimitable Sperl Polka (Johann Strauss) and a Chinese song transcription.
Hearing this perfect ensemble of incomparable sweetness left one in no doubt as to why the VPO are as great as they are.
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