St. Petersburg String Quartet Stirs Finney Audience

Quartet-in-Residence Stuns Finney

Curtain Call: The St. Petersburg Quartet faces the crowd in Finney Tuesday. (photo by Lee Dolan)

With Finney Chapel's newly installed organ as a backdrop, the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Oberlin's quartet-in-residence for the 2000-2001 academic year, played to a thoroughly engaged audience Tuesday night.

It is hard to imagine intensity more prolonged than that presented in Tuesday night's program of Mozart, Ravel and Russian composer Alexandre Glazunov. The quartet played with such passion that each note seemed a matter of life and death, each musical phrase more intense than the last, and not a fraction of a second, even for a rest, was thrown away. The entire audience was rapt the whole evening, leaving no opportunity for daydreaming.

The quartet consists of Alla Aranovskaya and Ilya Teplyakov on first and second violin, Aleksey Koptev on viola and Leonid Shukayev on cello. These fine musicians have earned international acclaim by winning competitions around the globe, and have released recordings of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich on the Sony Classics and Hyperion labels. The quartet was formed in 1985 by graduates of the Leningrad Conservatory, under the direction of Vladimir Ovcharek, a leading member of the Taneyev String Quartet.

The level of commitment that the players gave to their selections was apparent from the beginning of the program, with Mozart's haunting D minor quartet, "K. 421." If hearing the music wasn't enough, one could tell from the performers' facial expressions and sweeping body movements how deeply involved they were in the piece. One element that made the evening especially pleasant was that the quartet often played as if they didn't know where the music was going. This small element of surprise, whether to the virgin listener or the experienced one, gave the performance a much greater feeling of excitement. This was especially true in the Mozart.

Following the intense, emotional conclusion of the Mozart quartet was Glazunov's "Three Novellets, Op. 15." These charming pieces remind the listener of the rich folk music of Eastern Europe and Russia, most clearly highlighted in the last movement, subtitled "in Georgian style." Played with extreme care and precision, the fragility and delicacy of the music was elegantly underscored.

Last on the program was Ravel's renknown "Quartet in F major." Debussy wrote to the composer regarding this piece, "In the name of the God of music and in my own name, you must not tamper in any way with this string quartet you have written." Indeed, it seemed difficult to imagine more elegance and refinement as the St. Petersburg String Quartet continued to unfold their music into the ears of Finney's appreciative audience.

However, whether the same gravitas that made the Mozart so effective was appropriate in the more impressionistic passages of the Ravel is questionable. Much of the airiness of Ravel's trademark impressionist sound was lost due to the heaviness placed in every section of the music. It was certainly an interesting interpretation, but Ravel himself would perhaps not have thought it so appropriate.

After three curtain calls, Teplyakov, in his thick Russian accent, announced the encore: "Alexandre Glazunov. Scherzi." This piece gave a wonderful finish to the evening; it had hints of Mozart and Ravel, but was distinctly Russian, like the Novellets.

As Oberlin's quartet in residence, The St. Petersburg String Quartet will undoubtedly grace the stage of Finney this year with more superb performances like Tuesday's. Make the effort to see these concerts; it is rare that one has an opportunity to see such musicianship and passion in one evening.