CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF SALT LAKE CITY, Elias Quartet, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, March 26 

Great Britain’s Elias Quartet is always welcome in Salt Lake City. They’re four like minded musicians with remarkable interpretative prowess, astonishing technique and superb musicality.

Elias Quartet (Photo: Courtesy of the Artists)

They played in Salt Lake City Thursday to close out the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City’s current season. With a wonderfully well chosen program of Haydn, Britten and Mendelssohn, they showed they are equally conversant in 18th century expressions as they are in 20th century idioms.

The concert opened with Haydn’s Quartet in C major, op. 33, no. 3, The Bird.
The C major is one of the composer’s happiest and brightest quartets. The Elias gave a lyrically nuanced account with clean phrasings and articulation. Their interpretation was classically crafted and also infused with feeling, expression and depth.

In a completely different vein was the companion piece on the first half — Britten’s Third Quartet in G minor.

The composer’s final work, written in the year before he died, it is an intense emotional journey. It’s austere in its darkness and one can feel the pain and suffering that Britten must have experienced during the last year of his life.

The Elias gave a stellar reading that captured the earnestness of the music. They brought keen insight into a work that is difficult to play convincingly due to the intricate interplay among the four instruments. But they pulled it off wonderfully and it felt as if it had been written for them instead of the Amadeus Quartet (which premiered it shortly after Britten’s death in 1976).

The concert ended with a powerfully delineated reading of Mendelssohn’s Quartet in F minor, op. 80.

The Elias underscored the work’s romantic passion and restless drive with its stirring account that didn’t miss any nuances in conveying the rich palette of expressions.

They also played a pair of short Scottish pieces as encores.