Saturday, April 29, 2006

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
The Alexander Quartet and the Emerson Quartet Perform Shostakovich

By Anthony Tommasini

Apparently the coincidence of two overlapping Shostakovich string quartet cycles in New York is just that, a coincidence.

As part of Lincoln Center’s celebration of the Shostakovich centennial, the Emerson String Quartet is performing all 15 of his seminal quartets in chronological order in five concerts. The series began on Thursday night at Alice Tully Hall, and the place was packed.

Across town on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center at Lexington Avenue and East 25th Street, the Alexander String Quartet presented the first two programs in its five-concert survey of the Shostakovich string quartets, also offered in chronological order.
Though based in San Francisco, the Alexander Quartet has been presenting a short residency each semester at Baruch College for 20 years. When its players realized that their Shostakovich series would coincide with the Emerson’s, they adjusted one concert date so as not to conflict.

With all respect to the Emerson String Quartet, I must say that it was particularly exciting to hear the first six of Shostakovich’s elusive and remarkable string quartets played in the first two programs of the Alexander’s series at Baruch.

The Alexander has the enormous advantage of playing in an ideally intimate hall that seats just 174.  This modern auditorium doubles as a lecture hall, so there are elevated rows of ergonomic seats with ample leg room. But the smallness of the space and its vibrant acoustics are the selling points.

Chamber music, as its name implies, was meant to be performed in chamber rooms. Alice Tully Hall, though specifically built for chamber music, seats nearly 1,100 and feels bigger than that.

Devotees of chamber music have long adjusted to hearing string quartets and such played in Alice Tully Hall. On Thursday night, in the first three works, the Emerson played with its trademark burnished sound, interpretive insight and passion. Still, having just heard this music performed by the Alexander Quartet, I found the difference overwhelming.

At Baruch the vibrations from the low strings seemed to travel through the floor and up your legs. You felt enveloped by the music. At Alice Tully Hall, for all the intensity of the Emerson’s playing, the sound seemed to come from a distance. During frenetic passages of Quartet No. 2, the splattered intonation of Eugene Drucker in the first violin part, and the grittiness of the collective sound during some pummeled episodes, which went over the edge to coarseness, suggested that the musicians were trying to pump up the music to make an impact in the large, acoustically dry hall.
Without taking anything away from the superb Emerson musicians, who have stayed together and worked with integrity for nearly 30 years, the Alexander players held their own. It’s a curiosity of the classical music business that one deserving ensemble garners Grammy Awards, worldwide fame and standing ovations at New York’s premiere performing arts complex, whereas another deserving ensemble plays before a small, half-filled hall at a college. (A ticket price of $25, $15 for students and or those 65 and over, is another inducement; tickets for the Emerson concerts are $60 each.)

The playing of the Emerson Quartet may have had more shades of character and imaginative flights. Yet I was engrossed by the eerie restraint and, when called for, incisive attack of the Alexander’s performances. The first violinist, Zakarias Grafilo, was especially admirable for his focused and penetrating sound.

Still, ranking these estimable ensembles is not the point. Both surveys are distinguished. So far, though, the Alexander Quartet, playing in a perfect hall for chamber music, provided the more visceral experience of Shostakovich’s most intriguing and personal works.

The final two programs in the Alexander Quartet’s series are tonight and Monday night at 8; the Emerson Quartet’s series continues tomorrow at 5 p.m., May 4 and May 11 at 8 p.m., and May 14 at 5 p.m.