From Tulsa World

The Shanghai String Quartet has its own name for the music from its most popular CD, “Chinasong.” “We call it ‘The Eraser,’ ” said Weigang Li, the group’s first violinist, during a conversation prior to the quartet’s Tulsa debut performance Sunday at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. “We have to be careful about where we place it in a program, because audiences respond so strongly to this music,” he said. “It makes them forget everything we might play during the concert.”

Three selections from “Chinasong” — second violinist Yi-Wen Jiang’s arrangements for string quartet of works derived from Chinese folk songs — were at the center of the ensemble’s program Sunday. And the near-capacity crowd in the PAC’s Williams Theatre certainly responded strongly tothese finely crafted, beautifully melodic pieces.

The first, titled “ Yao Dance,” was perhaps the most obviously “Chinese” of the three, with the quartet evoking — rather than simply mimicking — the sound and tone of traditional Chinese instruments to create that uniquely metallic, elastic sound of Chinese music.

On the other hand, “Shepherd’s Song” had a lush, sweeping melody that would not have sounded out of place in a Golden-Age Broadway musical.

Only some unexpected twists in the harmony revealed its Oriental origins, while “Harvest Dance” was an energetic romp, with cellist Nicholas Tzavaras providing a bit of percussion by thumping on his cello’s body.

But the rest of the program — Mozart’s Quartet in F Major, K. 590, and the Quartet in A-fl at Major, Op. 105 by Dvorak — was performed with such passion and intelligence that not even the selections from “Chinasong” could obscure the accomplishment.

These two quartets were written near the end of their respective composers’ lives, and there was a valedictory air to the way the Shanghai Quartet approached this music.

That was especially true in the Mozart, which was infused with a sense of unshakeable melancholy from Tzavaras’ opening solo through the finale, which concluded not with a shout but with a resigned sigh.

What was striking about the quartet’s playing was their balance between a uni- fied group sound and maintaining distinctly individual voices. This was helped by Tzavaras’ often assertive playing, and the contrast between the sharp, clear tones of the violins of Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang and the rougher, woody sound from Honggang Li’s viola.

The Dvorak quartet was more of a rampage — a nervous, unsettling first movement, a rampaging second, a contemplative third, building up to a final mad dance.

This performance brought the crowd to its feet, and the quartet responded with an encore — the second movement of Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major.

Back to Reviews