Guarneri String Quartet

A great many musicians like to think of Brahm's music as short, symmetrical phrases, like the music of Haydn or Mozart. As a result, one often hears a version of Brahms in which the melodies are either blurred or altogether maimed. Seldom is Brahms' musical individuality more forcefully expressed than in his B-Minor Clarinet Quintet, and it is refreshing to hear it played in a way that does not attempt to warp the long melodic lines. The Guarneri String Quartet, in the third concert of its Summer series at Sanders Theatre, with clarinetist Harold Wright, gave a reading of his quintet which was remarkable not only in its handling of phrasing, but in its precision of ensemble.

The fact that the B-minor quintet is the fifth known work for clarinet and strings suggests that there is a danger of poor balance and unmusical tone-blending inherent in such a combination of instruments. But, Mr. Wright and the quartet produced a sound that successfully exploited the instrumentation as a vehicle for musical expression. Rather than stand out as an unwelcome intrusion into a string quartet, the clarinet functioned as a perfectly natural complement to the strings. The end result was a performance that left virtually nothing to be desired.

Also on the program were the Concertina for String Quartet by Stravinsky and the Beethoven C-sharp Minor Quartet, Op. 131. The Stravinsky, written in 1920, is a little-heard work that was also scored for wind ensemble. It shows the influence of Russian folk-music, but its construction focuses on an effort to draw a rough, guttural sound from the instruments, and it demands a great deal of technical competence of the players. The Guarneri Quartet measured up in every way to its challenges, and provided a startling contrast to the Romanticism of the Brahms.

Winding up the concert was the big, tired old Beethoven Op. 131. This seven movement work is the sort of piece that helped get under way the esthetic tradition that produced the Albert and Victoria monstrosities. To be played without any break between the section, it has a tremendous capacity for becoming a longwinded, disorganized barrage of pomposity, sentimentality, and self-conscious melodrama. For the first four movements there was a sense of heaviness, as if the music could not build up any motive force of its own and got from one measure to the next only through the brute force of the players.

Then things picked up. The vivacity of the fifth movement, the almost indescribable delicacy of the sixth, and the forthrightness and power of the last made the opening four worth sitting through. To be sure, the quartet demonstrated technical control throughout, particularly in those places in which the music takes on the air of an etude for the bow arm.

In short, the overall success of the concert was beyond a doubt, the only problems being those built-in flaws in the music.