MUSIC REVIEW : Unnamed String Quartet Opens Mischa Series

Since it opened its doors in October, 1955, venerable Schoenberg Hall Auditorium at UCLA has hosted any number of Beethoven cycles, as well as single Beethoven programs.

It would be difficult, however, to remember a Beethoven performance here given more energy, authority or sheer gutsiness than the two-quartet agenda opening the Music for Mischa series this week.

Beginning a third season, Music for Mischa--founded by cellist Robert Martin in honor of his late mentor, Mischa Schneider, and resident at Gindi Auditorium for its first two series--has come to roost in Westwood. The opening concert Sunday afternoon offered a deeply accomplished, ad-hoc string quartet without a name, one whose playing is, if not perfect, surprisingly major-league.

The members of this ensemble--violinists Joseph Genualdi and Miwako Watanabe, violist Michael Nowak and cellist Martin--are all young veterans of the chamber-music world, players of large experience and obvious rapport with each other.

What these musicians brought to both Opus 127 and the First “Razumovsky” Quartet was the fruits of their experience, plus the exuberance of a still-youthful approach to performing.

The proof of this blend emerged in the successful blossoming, the achieved depth and the probity to be heard in the two great slow movements. But it was also evident in the comprehensive, detailed, polished and enthusiastic way the four players delivered all of this music.

The entire performance, indeed, was characterized by a fullness of heart not often demonstrated by practitioners of this repertory.

The complete emotional range of Opus 127, for instance, from the precipitate lyricism of the opening, through the triumphs of the Adagio, the distanced aggression of the third movement and the heady exuberance of the finale, sometimes eludes even very gifted quartets. And the same kinds of demands, made in the F-major Quartet, elicited fully articulate, mood-specific performances from these four players.

There was one apparent compromise, however, in what might be considered a basic flaw in casting: first violinist Genualdi’s penchant for overplaying--which in moments creates technical hazards--sometimes creates a noticeable contrast to cellist Martin’s elegant manner of understatement, a manner widely admired, by the way. If each player could rein in his natural inclinations, they might be more compatible partners.