DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705070036
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music review

SOURCE: BY LEE TEPLY, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

MIAMI STRING QUARTET INJECTS EMOTION INTO PERFORMANCE

ONE OF THE benefits of the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival is the opportunity to compare several performances over a short time. Thus, it was most interesting to hear the Miami String Quartet Monday at the Wells Theatre, where the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra had played just six nights earlier.

While both groups presented fine programs, the contrast between the two was quite apparent in the 20th century music performed. Although both played this repertoire with a very high level of technical skill, the Stuttgart was quite rigid, allowing little emotion into its interpretation.

On the other hand, the Miami played with intense expression while maintaining a level of intimacy that drew the audience into its performance. In Paul Hindemith's Third String Quartet, composed in 1922, the emotional power of the post-World War I style was deeply felt.

With more of a sense of tonality than is found in works of contemporaries such as Arnold Schoenberg, its harmonic language was also more palatable for the modern audience.

Where dissonance and textural peculiarities occurred, they had a dramatic purpose that was at least understandable, if not very cheerful. To help the listener follow the unfamiliar score, the musicians made the structural definition of each movement clear with nuances in timing and sharply contrasting playing styles.

The balance in the changing combinations of instruments was well-controlled. Solo lines carried easily into the hall, which seems to favor the middle range. The violins in a low range, and especially the viola, sounded full, while the high violin lines and the cello had a thin sound. Nevertheless, the cello opened the fourth movement with a dramatic solo.

That such a compelling work was so well performed was an indication of the caliber of this ensemble. That such a rarely heard piece was performed at all was another benefit of the festival concept.

Monday's program closed with another relatively unfamiliar piece, but one with a much more traditional sound. Edvard Grieg's String Quartet in G Minor is thoroughly Romantic, with memorable melodies and at times a near-operatic dramatic appeal.

Every opportunity was taken to use rhythmic flexibility to give shape to individual lines or to define sections. Driving tempos pushed the ensemble to a frenzy of accents and syncopations, which were wild, but still under control.

In Haydn's G-minor quartet (Op. 76, No. 1), which opened the program, a generous rubato gave a natural sense of breathing to the more clearly structured form. Even within its more confined musical language, details of timing and careful consideration of tone color and dynamics brought out important material.

As an encore, a fast and buoyant quartet movement from Mozart's youth cleared the air after the intensity of Hindemith and Grieg. Again, the Stuttgart concert came to mind. While their encore, a very similar Mozart divertimento movement, was mildly charming and a bit tired, the Miami String Quartet still sounded fresh and energetic. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

MUSIC REVIEW

Miami String Quartet

Monday evening at the Wells Theatre, Norfolk; presented by the

Feldman Chamber Music Society and the Virginia Waterfront

International Arts Festival KEYWORDS: THE VIRGINIA WATERFRONT INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

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