concerts review: two quartets

Two of SF Performance's chamber music series wound up in the same week, and as a subscriber I got to both of them. The Danish String Quartet on Tuesday had an interestingly unusual program: first, their own arrangement of Stravinsky's Suite italienne, which in turn was Stravinsky's own arrangement for violin and piano of excerpts from his Pulcinella ballet music. This came out very Stravinskian. Then, Alfred Schnittke's Quartet No. 2, four movements of unending extreme dissonance, some of it Very Loud, some of it Extremely Quiet, and strangely captivating throughout. A lot of composers who like being dissonant could learn from this how to do it effectively. Lastly, a series of pleasant Nordic folk songs and dances, mostly Danish and Faroese, though when it was announced that one piece was from Greenland, the audience broke out into spontaneous applause.

Quatuor Ébène on Thursday was a more conventional program of 3 canonical 19C quartets by Beethoven (Op. 18/2), Debussy (his only), and Brahms (Op. 51/2). For an encore, a bit more daring, Britten's Divertimento No. 2. All were played in a style very typical of their composer. This worked well with the Beethoven, his most lively and perky quartet, but though the sound quality in the Debussy and Brahms was pretty awesome, they were rather duller to listen to. This is the sort of thing that stood in the way of my appreciating string quartets for a long time.

A big shutdown of the approaches of the Bay Bridge for repairs this weekend is already being prepared for, and driving out of the City at night was difficult both evenings even if you weren't going in that direction.