BRENTANO STRING QUARTET, Thursday, Nov. 18, 7:30 p.m. Museum of Fine Arts Auditorium on the University of Utah campus. One performance only.
The Brentano String Quartet (violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violist Misha Amory and cellist Nina Maria Lee) brought its inimitable artistry to Salt Lake City Thursday evening. The performers thrilled their audience here with a mesmerizing performance of two standard works for quartet along with a tantalizing contemporary piece.By far the most exciting work on the program was "Eight Colors" by the Chinese composer Tan Dun. Premiered in 1988, the piece skillfully blends atonality with Chinese inspired sounds. These are mixed together with an abundant use of special effects (such as glissandos, plucking the strings so that they strike the sound board and drawing the bow slowly across the string) to create an intense, colorful and descriptive piece of music.
The work is made up of eight brief movements that are almost like fleeting thoughts; it's reminiscent of Webern in the conciseness of its musical expression and in Dun's occasionally sparse scoring.
The concert opened with a dynamic interpretation of Mozart's Quartet in G major, K. 387. The Brentano played this work with romantic suppleness and classical poise that brought out the underlying urgency of the music, without compromising the melodic character of the work.
The evening ended with a supercharged performance of Schubert's Quartet in G major, op. 161. This work thrives on the dichotomy between music that is dramatically powerful and melodically simple. The four artists focused in on this contrast of moods, and they explored the emotional depths of this work while managing to keep everything in balance. Their interpretation was lucid, thoughtful and profound.