Music Reviews : Lark String Quartet at Scripps in Claremont

Under less-than-ideal circumstances, the Lark String Quartet delivered a richly varied, superbly executed concert at Scripps College in Claremont on Saturday evening.

Among the distractions with which the musicians had to contend were a parade of late-comers between movements of the first work, a broken string during the second, and external interruptions--first an airplane, then a train whistle--between movements (well-timed, at least) of the third.

The auditorium, moreover, was uncomfortably warm (which probably accounts for the broken string). The music-making hardly appeared to suffer, however. The all-female ensemble demonstrated technical consistency, interpretive unity and propulsive, dynamic playing.

To Beethoven’s Opus 18, No. 3, the Lark brought both stylish lyricism and stirring drama, often pushing the composer’s dramatic impulses to the limit, but at all times maintaining an unusually high level of refinement.

The four next gave an absorbing account of Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet, a work that contrasts slowly unwinding, meditative lines with frenetic, pounding ostinatos. They capitalized brilliantly on the work’s variety and skillfully proportioned the piece as a whole, making it a powerfully dramatic statement.

If Dvorak’s Quartet, Opus 51, covers a narrower emotional spectrum than does Shostakovich’s work, it nonetheless provided final proof of the four-year-old ensemble’s synergy.

And, as individuals, violinists Eva Gruesser and Robin Mayforth, violist Anna Kruger and cellist Astrid Schween each demonstrated eloquent phrasing, a full and vibrant sound and sure-fingered control.