Alberni Quartet At University

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31649, 8 April 1968, Page 14

Alberni Quartet At University

The Alberni String Quartet of the University of Canterbury gave its inaugural concert to the university last evening in the University Hall. The members of the Quartet, Messrs Dennis Simons Howard Davis, Berian Evans, and Gregory Baron, were welcomed by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Phillips. Two works, the Mozart Quartet in D minor and Alan Rawsthorne’s Quartet No. 1, were played to the Chamber Music Society on Thursday evening, and were once more played with meticulous attention to balanced blending of timbres, to expressive and shapely phrasing, and to clarity of line. Each player has a mastery of singing tone, flexible in subtle nuances, and the contribution of each instrument to the whole texture can easily be identified, but there is no moment when the balance of the ensemble, can be called in question. There is stirring rhythmic vitality in all the playingin slow cantabile work as well as in fast-moving passages—and the unanimity in the varying strengths of accent is exemplary.

The playing always has warmth of feeling, with intensity of expression in climaxes and with charmingly lyrical serenity in reflective music. Both types of playing were heard to fine advantage in Rawsthorne’s highly-coloured and closely-woven music. The Brahms Quartet in C minor. Op. 51, No. 1, began with warmly soaring sounds casting a bright glow. Lovely mellow sounds were produced, piling up in rich profusion, with charmingly lyrical points of repose. This was music of a contented heart and mellow spirit. The second movement sang gently in reminiscent mood with tone of rounded sonority. The third had an atmosphere of wonderment and of eager searching; and the finale opened with challenge flung out as when a mountaineer begins the ascent of a towering face of a formidable mountain. This spirit of high adventure continued through the movement, even in its more quiet parts, and found triumph in the ending. The Alberni Quartet will next be heard in the Cathedral on Wednesday evening. —C.F.B.