'Canopy' performance lofty

By Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Whenever Beethoven's mighty Opus 130 String Quartet appears on a concert program, it's pretty much a no-brainer that this sprawling masterpiece gets top billing - particularly when the performance concludes with the composer's original finale, the earth-shaking Grosse Fuge.

What can top that? Well, Friends of Chamber Music and the St. Lawrence String Quartet came up with something special Wednesday in Gates Concert Hall: a commissioned premiere.

While Jonathan Berger's three-movement quartet, The Bridal Canopy, couldn't overshadow the Beethoven, it certainly proved a worthy co-star.

Commissioned by Friends stalwarts Richard Replin and Elissa Stein in memory of departed board members, Canopy does contain its mournful moments of nostalgia. But, as the Stanford-based composer explained to the packed house, its main inspiration is the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon - a story, Berger noted, that "takes angular turns" as it chronicles the journeys of one Reb Yudel.

The ever-shifting score moves in similar fashion, finding its roots in Jewish culture, yet never descending into cliched klezmer dance stylings. Instead, this is dense, complex music that intermixes agitated, Bartokian passages with unexpected unison moments - all interspersed with equally surprising sudden stops. We hear anger, sadness and touches of Hebraic melodic-minor motifs.

Berger, 53, knows his way around the bare-bones medium of the string quartet (this is his fifth piece for the St. Lawrence) and seldom did he run out of ideas, or allow the pacing to drag. This ambitious quartet should enjoy a healthy concert life - particularly if played with the assurance and impeccable technique displayed on Wednesday.

The Quartet (Scott St. John and Geoff Nuttall, violins, Lesley Robertson, viola and Christopher Costanza, cello) ended the evening with Beethoven's Opus 130, powering through the energetic movements - including a riveting account of the "Great Fugue" - while bringing out the playfulness of the two brief dance segments. In the midst of all that, the otherworldly Cavatina emerged with a subtle grace and communicativeness not always encountered.

The foursome opened the program with four charming miniatures by Dvoruk, from a collection known as Cypresses. This delightfully naive group served as an ideal appetizer before the heavy main course of Berger and Beethoven.

shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296

St. Lawrence String Quartet

* Grade: A

* When and where: Wednesday at Gates Concert Hall