Skride Piano Quartet

March 10, 2019, Town Hall
Skride Piano Quartet
Mahler - Mozart - Brahms

Latvian Baiba Skride, winner of 2001 Queen Elizabeth (the same year Singaporean Kam Ning placed second and Chinese Ning Feng placed fifth), is fairly well known in Europe, less so in America. The other members are also seasoned professionals. Sister Lauma Skride is the pianist. French Lise Bertaud is the violist. Dutch Harriett Krijgh, who has just become a member of the Artemis Quartet (which unfortunately seems to be in a great state of flux), is the cellist.

Perhaps because of the rain, attendance was low for a PSC concert.

Mahler's Piano Quartet in A minor, a work of his teens, has only one extant movement and is seldom heard. Judging from this performance, that is unfortunate. The foreboding opening on the piano and the soft string figures that followed had me hooked. The string players here had an ethereal quality in pianissimo. The foursome have a fanatical attention to rhythm, detail and balance that is highly cultured and, dare I say, European.

Leader Baiba Skride is unusually deferent to his colleagues, and I can see why - they are all great players and tonally ravishing. But when she does step out (she makes a slight turn so the violin projects directly to the audience), there is no mistaking that she is a player of power.

Though the pianist sometimes played quite spritely, the measured approach of the strings made Mozart's Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor come across as rather dark. During intermission, the fellow in front of me wondered how they were going to get through the second half; he said, apologetically to his female friends that some "testosterone" was missing. He was likely an amateur musician (many in the psc audience). He need not have worried.

The Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor, though superbly played, was not the kind of virtuoso display that I experienced previously with the Andsnes crowd (here). The Alla Zingarese that capped the piece was urgent, but less pungent than usual. The previous movements were well delineated and balanced, but in unearthing details and rhythm subtleties, the main melodies sometimes were not brought forth enough. Nonetheless, for me, it was an excellent and equally valid effort. Keep in mind this was an all minor-key concert!