From Bennington Banner

Friday, August 22 MANCHESTER — The sixth concert of the Manchester Music Festival's summer series took place at the Southern Vermont Arts Center on Aug. 14. The concert began with a brilliant performance of the Beethoven string quartet Op. 18 No. 6 by the Shanghai Quartet. Program notes told us that this ensemble, originally formed 25 years ago in Shanghai, "has been known for their passionate musicality, impressive technique, and multicultural innovations." Perhaps the latter would seem not to have been needed in "early" Beethoven, but whatever their "multicultural" outlook, the quartet gave us a performance that was amazingly fresh and new to my ears. But looking again at the score, I see they did just what Beethoven asks for — only with that "passionate musicality" and "impressive technique" that lifted this performance to another level. The score says "Allegre con brio" — and alla breve — (forgive the jargon, it means lively with spirit, and fast) and here it blazed, the "softs" were whispers, the accents sharp and clean. The "scherzo" movement — the "joke" or "play" its name implies — was just that in sound, and the vibratoless "Malinconia" of the last movement foretold depths yet to be heard from Beethoven in his late quartets. What a performance! And what an opening for a concert! The Mendelssohn octet which combined the Shanghai Quartet and string players of the MMF faculty had no trouble in bringing up the lights again. I have heard and played this many times, but I think never with the seating we heard here: two quartets seated opposite instead of four violins on one side and the rest across. And what a difference it made: antiphonal passages were clear as such — something I could see from the score but never heard when quartets were mixed. Here we again heard the energy and brilliance of the Shanghai Quartet, and the MMF quartet matched them in every way. I have never enjoyed a performance of this work as I did here: a fine ending for the chamber music

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