Kenneth Herman

San Diego Arts

San Diego Symphony String Quartet Plays S.D. Museum of Art

The Spanish Connection
By Kenneth Herman
Posted on Apr 03 2008
Last updated Apr 03 2008

Since I have been eager to hear the recently-formed San Diego Symphony String Quartet, I made a point to attend their concert Tuesday (April 1) night in the Hibben Gallery of the San Diego Museum of Art. Although it was a rewarding performance in many ways, I still cannot say that I have a clear take on this ensemble, because in truth it was a concert of the San Diego Symphony String Quartet and friends.

Both Julie Smith, the Symphony’s newly appointed Principal Harp, and cellist Charles Curtis, UC San Diego music faculty member, have strong musical personalities, and their presence on the improvised stage at one end of the Hibben Gallery tended to put the Symphony Quartet in a secondary role. This was particularly the case in the program-opening “Danses sacrée et profane” by Claude Debussy, where the florid harp scoring filled the gallery with resonant, almost booming, sound, making the quartet of strings sound decorative at best. Smith displayed a confident mastery of the work’s many challenges, and her precise articulation clarified the differences between the surging arpeggios and the composer’s lofty melodic ideas. A question for the performers: my sources say Debussy wrote this work for harp and string quintet, so where was that other string part?

All the requisite strings were present for Luigi Boccherini’s Quintet in E Major, with UCSD’s Curtis joining cellist Yao Zhao, violist Rebecca Gitter and violinists Jeff Thayer and Alexander Palamidis (the Symphony Quartet roster) for this rococo gem. (Yes, this is the string quintet with that famous minuet that is so frequently excerpted for commercials and music appreciation courses.) Curtis and Zhao shared the ebullient cello parts with alacrity—Boccherini was a virtuoso cellist as well as a prolific composer, so he gave choice musical ideas to his favored instrument. Choosing an easy-going, unforced approach to the quintet, the players allowed it to unfold with appropriate grace and courtly phrasing. The minuet seemed particularly understated.

Curtis pointed out the relationship of this String Quintet and the Francisco Goya painting of a Spanish marquis hanging on the gallery wall behind the instrumentalists. This 1795 painting of a member of the royal court in Madrid was from the same period that Boccherini served as the Madrid court’s resident composer, and it was tempting to equate Goya’s delicate pastel hues and subtle use of light with Boccherini’s evanescent, graceful melodies and muted harmonic palette.

Beethoven’s D Major String Trio, Op. 9, No. 2, sounded less integrated and balanced among the players than the Boccherini. In this work, Curtis led the charge, while Thayer and Gitter pressed on in his wake. What struck me about the strength of Curtis’s sound was its intense focus made more penetrating by his unusually long bowing strokes. His powerful playing lowered the center of gravity in a context where the highest sounds tend to dominate the listener’s impressions.

Camille Saint-Saens’ rhapsodic duo, the Fantasie for Harp and Violin, Op. 124, gave Thayer a chance to duel with Smith on an equal playing field. Each part has a plenitude of dazzling pyrotechnics, and the two players dug into the piece like scorned lovers in an operatic mad scene. In terms of musical content, this was not “The Art of Fugue,” but as an emotional tour de force, it left little to be desired.

About the author: Kenneth Herman began his writing career as a music critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune and covered classical music for the San Diego Edition of the Los Angeles Times (1982-1992). He wrote "A History of the Spreckels Organ." and is currently Music Director/Organist for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego and conducts the 60-voice San Diego Youth Choir.
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Comments

Posted by Nathan	April 5, 2008
Concerning the Debussy: The piece is actually written for harp and string orchestra, with more than one player on each part. So any chamber performance must be an arrangement; this one is not uncommon, and there's a recording of it with the Tokyo quartet accompanying the harp. The lighter than usual accompaniment probably also explains the imbalance you heard between the soloist and ensemble; Debussy had intended it to be played with a much larger group. (And, incidentally, on a different instrument: the chromatic harp, a then-newly-invented instrument that has not survived in common

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