Guarneri Quartet Displays Mastery

In chamber music, a friend remarked at intermission, there is no substitute for time. Neither of us could say how many years it took for a quartet to become a great quartet, but we knew it couldn’t be done fast.

Prodigies appear every year. Young quartets--ensembles playing together three or five or even seven years--have something to offer. But for a real understanding of chamber music, you have to go to the masters. You have to go to an ensemble like the Guarneri String Quartet, which was founded in 1964 and which still consists of the original members.

The Guarneri--violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violist Michael Tree and cellist David Soyer--proved the point in Mozart, Verdi and Brahms on Monday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Their unanimity in attack, phrasing and color; perfect balance among parts; organic response to the music, which always sounded fresh--all that defines an ideal of chamber music playing.

Brahms’ First Quartet could bear greater emotional weight, but the Guarneri achieved eloquence in capturing the composer’s surging Romantic passion, patrician control and pensive reflection.

Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor--his only instrumental composition--rarely surfaces in concert or recording. The rewards are rather modest, but it is fascinating to hear Verdi writing abstract music. Still, the most interesting moments either evoked song (the vibrant cello theme of the slow movement) or dramatic scenes.

Mozart’s early quartets in B-flat, K. 159, and E-flat, K. 160, offer gallant and lyrical felicity. But the composer was still treating the form as an entertainment. The quartet certainly made it that, while in the process spinning out the kind of unified filigree line that is the stuff of renown.

The encore was a glowing account of the slow movement from Debussy’s Quartet in G minor.