Chamber Music Concert

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32010, 10 June 1969, Page 18

Chamber Music Concert

The New Prague Quartet of the University of Canterbury —Stefan Czapary, Rudolf Kalup. Jaroslav Karlovsky, and Zdenek Konicek—began its programme in the University Hall last evening with Haydn’s String Quartet in D major Op. 20, No. 4. It was a lovely work, bright with sunshine and with promise of a rich harvest, and the vibrancy of the playing cast a burnished glow. The players, in perfect precision, brought out the swiftly moving lines of the first move ment with brilliant clarity, and played the gracious sec ond movement with tone that was both tender and mellow The minuet had a sparkling verve and the last movement was like swift and fitful gusts of wind rippling patches on the clear surface of a lake. It was all gloriously elegant playing.

In Bartok’s String Quartet No. 3 the players showed command over an astonishingly wide variety of tonal changes. There was a stark wildness of atmosphere at the beginning and the texture of the music called for, and got fine judgment in both weight and timbres. Gipsy dance rhythms were brought forth with rare stomp and eclat, nor did the pace and the intoxicating exhilaration slacken as one scene and mood yielded place to another Even when it seemed that idyllic tranquillity might prevail for a while there was always an arresting and graunching sound ready to hand to stir the ferment There was fascinating and coruscating brilliance throughout the performance The second part of the programme began with a Meditation on the old Czech chor-

lai, “St Wenceslas,” by Josef Suk. It was a gently medi tative work played with polished finesse in phrasing and with unfaltering regard for the niceties of ensemble balance. Serge Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 2 in F major, based on folk melodies, began with pleasant conviviality and developed with an athletic tautness of spirit suggesting a bracing out-of-doors excitement. The second move ment had a plaintive melody that seemed to have high and difficult rock faces behind its inspiration. This was replaced by a country-dance type of motif which in its turn made way for a return of the atmosphere of the beginning. The last movement had a much more complicated life, and peasant festivities held sway once more. ' 7 —C.F.B.