The first Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society concert I reviewed made the Post-Gazette's top ten list of 2007 performances. I am a free-lance reviewer, helping the main critic, Andrew Druckenbrod, stay on top of Pittsburgh's vibrant concert scene. One of the repercussions of being Andrew's "stand-in" is that the regulars of particular concert series will not always believe that I am attending in an official capacity. At this concert, the patron sitting next to me kept looking at me and then over-her-shoulder, as if waiting for someone to enter the hall. Becoming more and more agitated, she finally asked me how I got these particular seats because, she said, "The reviewer usually sits here." Clearly this person really wanted to talk to Andrew about something, or bask in the "reflected aura" of sitting next to the critic. She took her job of protecting his seat from any usurpers seriously and I believe she was getting ready to an ask an usher to escort me from the hall.
The Zehetmair Quartet sets itself apart from other string quartets by memorizing a single program for each concert season. Wednesday night at Carnegie Music Hall, they proved that playing from memory is more than a marketing tool with a concert that the patrons of Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society will not soon forget. Because the Zehetmair prepares only a single program each season, its repertoire is smaller than other active quartets. However, in a program of works by Mozart, Hindemith and Schumann, founding violinist Thomas Zehetmair led his quartet through musically rich interpretations that proved their approach to the literature results in an exceptionally deep and thoughtful understanding of the music.
In all of the pieces, the quartet brought impeccable phrasing and musical pacing required for each work to be shown in the best light. Mozart's early G Major Quartet was played with a balance of sublimity and expansive emotional intensity. Hindemith's Fourth String Quartet especially benefited from the Zehetmair's interpretive skills. Its up-tempo first and third movements portrayed Hindemith's chromatic language as a tapestry of fluid musical lines. By not lingering on each dissonance and subsequent resolution, the larger shape of Hindemith's work was refreshingly brought into focus. Like a memory that fades with time, the disappearance of the muted third movement into scarcely audible pizzicatos was a poignant and sophisticated reading.
Renowned for his Schumann interpretations, Thomas Zehetmair led his quartet through an insightful and classical rendition of the composer's Quartet in A Minor. Giving just the right amount of emphasis to the work's initial deceptive cadences, Zehetmair and company set the stage for the dramatic interplay between the work's two contrasting keys: F major (the first and third movement) and A minor (the second and final).
The ensemble transformed the return of the Scherzo's rhythmic thumbprint into a sinister interruption of the movement's lilting intermezzo. The third movement benefited from the quartet's unflinching temporal precision. An Adagio that can easily become bogged down by sluggish arpeggios, the quartet presented these as the supporting pillars for Schumann's wistfully simple theme. Towing a fine line between expressiveness and sappiness, the ensemble knew when to let go of this movement without lingering at its conclusion. The final movement's elated arrival on A major was achieved with a sense of purpose. The quartet showed that all of the previous material was decisively leading to the final modulation.
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