Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 5, 1992 TAG: 9203050038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This was NOT a good night to miss a Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society concert. Because in an era when the phrase "good young quartet" applies to ensembles without number, the Magginis have an indefinable something extra. They're not world-class yet, but listeners Tuesday night might have been excused for thinking that here was a great quartet of the future on its way to maturity.
And more than many quartets in recent memory at Olin Hall, these musicians had ensemble. In their best moments they were animated by a single musical intelligence, seeming even to breathe together. Their Mozart was virile yet nuanced, their Beethoven shapely and powerful, and their rarely heard Karol Szymanowski quartet shone with an unearthly light.
There were three or four moments when one sensed an ensemble moving through and beyond therealm of mere technique into re- gions where only the finest quartets manage to go.
The Maggini Quartet began with a robust and muscular String Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458 of Mozart, known as the "Hunt" quartet. Though their tempi were by no means the fastest I've heard, they imparted to the music an inexorable forward movement that carried the performance along. This was a transparently textured quartet, fleet and joyous and light as meringue. Mozart of this caliber isn't heard every day in Western Virginia.
First violinist Thomas Bowes explained that the Magginis' second work inhabited "a different world" from the Mozart. This was the String Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 37, of Karol Szymanowski. Though he's known as the "Father of Modern Polish Music," Szymanowski isn't exactly a household word even among classical music enthusiasts. The thickly textured late-Romantic atmosphere of this quartet suggested that he may be an acquired taste.
The second half of the concert was devoted to one of the so-called "Razumovsky" quartets of Beethoven, the String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2. It was a beautifully shaped Beethoven, with some especially fine work from violist Martin Outram and cellist Michal Kaznowski.
Formerly principal cellist for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Kaznowski is one of the most tasteful and rhythmically precise cellists heard in Olin Hall in quite some time. Whether due to an extremely responsive instrument or his own big tone, however, he at times seemed on the verge of playing too loudly.
One small complaint: These guys are perilously close to becoming concert-hall lecturers. A few introductory comments are one thing, musicology lectures something else again. Violist Outram took five minutes to introduce the Mozart, and first violinist Bowes twice took six minutes to introduce the Szymanowski and the Beethoven. They're much better players than raconteurs.
Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.
by CNB