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The self-effacing beauty of sound was memorable... [but] what was rarer was the alliance of gorgeous tone with an unwavering unanimity of expressive intent. It resulted in a musical conversation of stunning authenticity and presence.
-The Washington Post
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Shanghai Quartet, Pianist Find Soul of Schumann Piece by Clarke Bustard From Richmond Times-Dispatch Friday June 4th, 2004 By Clarke Bustard Joined by a pianist in a big piece of romantic chamber music, the Shanghai Quartet inevitably rises to the occasion. It happened again last night as the group played Robert Schumann's Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44, with pianist Christopher O'Riley. This can be one of the most engaging works in the chamber literature when performers effectively play up its contrasts of drama and lyricism, agitation and reverie. To make it truly musical, though, interpreters must convey the music's varying moods and intensity levels within a larger context, treating the quintet as an eventful but coherent piece of tone poetry. O'Riley and the Shanghai - violinists Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang, violist Honggang Li and cellist Nicholas Tzavaras - were audibly of one mind and one spirit, feeding off one another's energy and expressiveness. O'Riley played the University of Richmond's Steinway with power and warmth, and without a trace of the glassy sound character that can afflict the piano in the bright acoustics of Camp Concert Hall. He may be the first visiting pianist to completely master this instrument in this environment. Last night's concert, opening the classical component of the Modlin Summer Night's festival at UR's Modlin Arts Center, began with the Shanghai delivering an especially refined reading of Mozart's Quartet in B flat major, K. 589, the second of his "Prussian" quartets. Cellist Tzavaras took advantage of his solo and lead roles in the Mozart, sounding especially sonorous in his exchanges with Weigang Li in the first movement. The ensemble introduced more of the handiwork of Jiang, who is a prolific and adept arranger. (His arrangements of traditional Chinese melodies are the Shanghai's trademark miniatures.) Last night the group played his string-quartet versions of six of Edvard Grieg's "Lyric Pieces," originally for piano. Slower, more introspective pieces naturally lend themselves to strings; but the fiddles turned out to be no less idiomatic and characterful in Grieg's folk-dance adaptations, such as "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen," the finale of Jiang's set. |
