concert review: Dover Quartet and Leif Ove Andsnes

I almost didn't get to this concert. My plan for Thursday had been to come back from going out to lunch at about 12.30, which would give me time to rest up and complete a few errands, like submitting the week's grocery order online, before driving up to the City at about 2 in time to attend a free student chamber recital at the Conservatory at 4, then have dinner and walk to the nearby Herbst where the evening concert would be.

But then when I was out for lunch, my car's engine started to overheat. The dealer where I get my regular servicing done was 18 miles away, much too far to take with an overheated engine. So I nursed the car a few blocks to an industrial zone where I hoped I'd find an auto repair shop. I did, but they doubted they'd get to my car before Monday (they're closed on weekends). Fortunately the signup didn't take very long, and they were able to get Enterprise to come and pick me up and take me to their rental lot, so I got home and got that stuff done, but at the price of missing the Conservatory recital, and was able to leave by 4, which is my usual time for an evening trip to the City.

So what was there was not quite the Dover Quartet I knew. Since I last heard them, their violist has left and they've gotten a new one - like the rest, she's a Curtis graduate, but is a few years older than the others, who were all classmates. And their first violinist was out sick, so they borrowed the one from the Escher Quartet, whose grittier sound didn't blend ideally with the Dover's smoother texture, but there were no technical difficulties: these players are all far too professionally skilled for that.

I've heard the Brahms piano quintet played slowly with solemn weight, and I think it works better that way, but there's always room for a fiery speed demon of a performance if it's good enough, and this one certainly was, ending with a dazzle. The Dohnanyi Second Quintet, which I've heard at Menlo, the players took more slowly and cautiously, putting the emphasis on the slow sections rather than the sprightly opening. It certainly impressed the fellow I was chatting with at the bus stop after the concert, to whom it was new. Dohanyi was a conservative composer in a revolutionary age, so he tends to get neglected. We then shifted to the winnowing process which filters out the new music that deserves to be forgotten, and to point out how much of that there is, he cited Sturgeon's Law, except that he attributed it to Fred Pohl. I didn't say anything about that, or even indicate that I already knew that principle, but - Fred Pohl. Interesting.