NOVA CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES, Fry Street Quartet, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Jan. 12
Utah’s gem of a string quartet, the Fry Street Quartet, made its annual visit to the NOVA Chamber Music Series Sunday.
Fry Street Quartet (Photo Credit: Mary Kay Gaydos Gabriel)
It’s always a pleasure hearing the FSQ play. The members of the ensemble are perceptive interpreters, wonderful musicians and remarkable technicians. They make everything they play a memorable experience.
The FSQ opened its concert with Haydn’s sunny Quartet in G major, op. 76, no. 1. The foursome captured the bright, airy character of the music with their ebullient reading. There was a lightness to their touch that made the music flow effortlessly. It was a well expressed, lyrical and absolutely engaging performance.
Their appearance Sunday also included a collaboration with pianist and NOVA artistic director Jason Hardink in Dvorak’s massive Piano Quintet in A, op. 81.
The five players gave an impassioned account that embraced the energy and romantic spirit of the music. They played with large gestures that captured the score’s sweeping lines. Their interpretation was gorgeously nuanced in its expressions, allowing them to bring out the many subtleties in the music. Their playing did full justice to the music, and this was certainly the highpoint of the concert.
In between these two works was the Utah premiere of Michael Ellison’s Quartet No. 3, Fiddlin’, a NOVA co-commission.
Much of the material Ellison uses in this work is based on American and Turkish folk idioms. It gives the piece an exotic aura that makes it interesting. It’s a multi-movement work with some of the movements extremely short; because of this it never feels as though Ellison is able to develop the material fully. And a more thoroughly consistent development of these ideas is what the work really needs. As such there is no cohesiveness within the movements and within the work as a whole.
However, the FSQ gave an admirable account, playing with conviction and a real sense of investment in the music. It was a captivating and engaging performance.