{TABLE} Quartet in D K575 .......................... Mozart Mystic Play of Shadows ..................... Jane O'Leary Quintet in C K515 .......................... Mozart {/TABLE} THE RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet's concert at the National Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon featured two top flight pieces by Mozart, plus a recent composition by Jane O'Leary.
Mozart's Quartet in D K575 is not the most profound of the composer's quartets but its high polish demands a clarity of texture and neatness of shaping which have proved stumbling blocks for many players. Not so for the Vanbrughs, who balanced Mozart's elaborate textures via an impeccable sense for what was primary and what was secondary, and whose shaping was always pleasing to listen to.
The acoustic of the NCH's main hall proved a bit cavernous for such precisely conceived chamber music. But it did not have such a limiting effect on Jane O'Leary's Mystic Play of Shadows, which these players premiered last June at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. The composer has declared that in this work she concentrated on the interplay between instruments that it was inspired by the sounds of nature, and that it has "no formal structure". It is indeed sometimes loose in its focus on structure but this delicately shaded performance made the most of instrumental interplay, and was persuasive.
Constantin Zanidache (viola) joined the quartet for Mozart's Quintet in C K515. This received the most rewarding performance of the afternoon, and not just because it was the best piece. Mozart's quintets are a pinnacle of classical chamber music, especially for the ways they exploit varied discourse between the players. (Mozart himself commonly played a viola part.) All the players in this performance entered into this discourse, and balanced finely the intimacy of the concept with the demands of public performance. It was, however, perplexing to have the usual order of the middle movements (minuet slow movement) reversed without explanation, and in contradiction of the details given in the programme note.
