DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010031

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music review

SOURCE: BY LEE TEPLY, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

RUSSIAN STRING QUARTET EXCELS

THE FELDMAN Chamber Music Society began its 51st season Monday evening with a concert by the St. Petersburg String Quartet in the Chrysler Museum Theater. Performing to a nearly sold-out hall, the Russian group played music from its homeland that was soothing, dramatic and challenging.

This was one of the finest ensembles to play in this series in recent years. All technical concerns were well under control, allowing full attention to be given to making music. In pieces that had many rhythmic nuances, the four musicians shaped every phrase as if thinking with one mind, as if moving the four bows with one hand.

In the opening work, the slow Notturno from Alexander Borodin's second quartet, the beautiful melody was first played with tender warmth on the cello. When taken over by the first violinist, the tune was sung with the sweetest, gentlest high notes. Contrasting material was played a bit heavily and quite fast, before the original melody returned in an enchanting conclusion.

Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1 is a rather traditional work, particularly in the clear structures of the outer movements. The quartet took full advantage of the dramatic potential of the forms by balancing the various sections within the movements through careful pacing.

Their sense of timing always implied motion and shape, especially in the irregular rhythms inspired by Russian folk tunes. The quiet second movement had a fluid quality that drew the complete attention of the audience, while the last movement's dazzling finish earned an enthusiastic response.

After intermission, the more difficult score of Dmitri Shostakovich's second quartet was explored. As in the other music, the formal patterns were quite understandable. It used a dissonant harmonic language that expressed the pains, as well as the hopes, of the Soviet people in 1944, the year of its composition.

The first violin and cello dominated the texture, as they did much of the evening. But the second violin and viola had opportunities to stand out more in this music, revealing pleasing, if somewhat thinner, tones.

All of the music on the program had a dramatic side, but this aspect was quite obvious in this piece. The second movement, an instrumental recitative, was clearly a ``song without words,'' but so too was the finale's concluding chorale. The emotional impact of the striking composition was fully realized through the quartet's intense approach.

To clear the air, the quartet offered one encore, also by Shostakovich, his witty and quirky Polka. The players took full advantage of the piece's peculiarities, bending familiar tunes into odd shapes. They brought to life a beloved figure in Russian society - the clown - to amuse the crowd that had been so weighted down by the troubling music of the modern age. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

MUSIC REVIEW

St. Petersburg String Quartet

Monday at the Chrysler Museum Theater, Norfolk

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