Unforgettable Shostakovich!
by
Lyn Bronson
Alla Aranovskaya, Alla Krolevich, Leonid Shukayev & Boris Vayner
Every once in a while you hear a performance so convincing
and so inevitable you can’t imagine the work played any other way. That happened
last night in Sunset Center Theater when the St. Petersburg String Quartet,
presented by Chamber Music Monterey Bay, began its program with a mind blowing
performance of the Shostakovich String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 106.
The four musicians in the quartet, violinists Alla
Aranovskaya and Alla Krolevich, violist Boris Vayner and cellist Leonid Shukayev,
are no strangers to us for Chamber Music Monterey Bay has presented them before.
One of the most impressive aspects of their playing was their easy
mastery and economy of resources so that they never seemed to be pushing for
effect or overplaying their instruments. Violinists Aranovskaya and Krolevich
played with impressive authority, and violist Vayner and cellist Shukayev both
had dazzling moments of intensity and beauty.
What a way to begin a concert! The Shostakovich Quartet was
totally compelling from the first note to the last. Time seem to stop as we were
drawn into the music and held there in suspension. Many musical points were made
without strain or exaggeration, and beautifully controlled gestures were able to
convey the most profound emotions simply and convincingly.
There was, however, a downside to this, for it was such a
hard act to follow that the work we heard next, Mendelssohn’s Viola Quintet No.
2 in B-flat major, seemed bland and anticlimactic by comparison.
In this work the Quartet was joined by
guest artist, the distinguished violist Michael Tree. Although we heard much to
admire, I kept waiting for something to happen. Finally in the third movement,
Adagio e lento, and in the finale,
Allegro molto vivace, more expressive
and dramatic qualities began to emerge, but when the work ended and the
intermission began, all I could think about was the Shostakovich we had heard
previously.
After intermission we heard a relative novelty, the
Orientale from Glazunov’s Five
Novelettes, Op. 15, and it was a delightful and charming five-minute piece with
sensuous melodies, an occasional infectious drone-like accompaniment and an
arousing finale that left us in an upbeat mood.
The concert ended with Michael Tree once again joining the
musicians to perform with them the Brahms Viola Quintet in G major, Op. 111. We
heard a lot of fine playing from each of the musicians, but it has to be said
that this work suffers by comparison to the Clarinet or Piano Quintets. We were
given a charming encore, a scherzo movement from Dvořák's Viola Quintet.
