As the string quartets that dominated the latter decades of the 20th century age, lose momentum and, in some cases, disband, a new group of dynamic young ensembles has risen to take their place.
Among the best is the Pacifica String Quartet. That quickly became clear during a brilliant performance Wednesday evening in a sold-out Gates Concert Hall, as the 12-year-old ensemble made its second visit to the Friends of Chamber Music series.
These four closely knit musicians bring freshness, inner vibrancy and an open, radiant sound to their playing, not to mention a seemingly unerring ability to capture the innate mood and character of whatever they take on.
The quartet presented an ambitious, anything but predictable program, opening with a natural, gracious take on Felix Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 12. It has recorded all the composer’s quartets, and its affinity for this music is obvious.
For the concert’s centerpiece, the Pacifica offered a rare and welcome opportunity to hear the Quartet No. 1 by Elliott Carter, the venerable dean of American composition. This unrelenting, hard-edged work manages to be confounding, draining and exhilarating all at the same time.
An avowed modernist and an indefatigable innovator, Carter has long rooted his music in the work of such early-20th-century composers as Schoenberg and Berg. His complex, uncompromising writing can be hard to play and listen to, yet it is virtually always worth the effort.
In this 1951 quartet, staggered tempos and polyrhythms overlap and musical ideas constantly flow and evolve into each other. Nothing is settled or resolved. The work is interrupted by two seemingly arbitrary moments of silence, creating three sections, much like a painted triptych in which the composition continues despite the gaps.
This was a taut, intense performance, in which the Pacifica managed to give the competing currents as much cohesive integrity as this music will allow. The players made sure the work was not just a mathematical rubric, but, in its own way, a wonderfully expressive whole.
Providing an ideal cap to the evening was a spirited take on Bedrich Smetana’s delightful Quartet No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, “From My Life,” with its good- humored musical theatrics and vernacular spirit.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
