Emotionally powerful composition played expressively by Ciompi Quartet

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Donald Rosenberg

Plain Dealer Music Critic

The string quartet has been a transcendent genre since the 18th century, and it continues to fascinate composers, performers and listeners. The Ciompi Quartet acknowledged as much Monday at the Rocky River Senior Center by filling a generous Haydn-Beethoven sandwich with a significant new work by Cleveland composer Paul Schoenfield.

There is no way to come away from Schoenfield's String Quartet No. 2, subtitled "Memoirs," without being deeply affected. The composer pays homage to traditional forms, such as the fugue, while drawing inspiration from Jewish folk traditions and contemporary techniques.

The result is a five-movement work of stunning emotional impact. Schoenfield's score verges on the precipice of anguish, though moments of euphoria and rebellious spirit often come leaping from the page. The strings are voices that converse with sorrowful understanding or exuberant pride.

 The Ciompi, which is in residence at Duke University, played Schoenfield's creation as if mesmerized by its expressive urgency. Violinists Eric Pritchard and Hsiao-mei Ku, violist Jonathan Bagg and cellist Fred Raimi inhabited the diverse worlds, vividly conveying the subtle details and grand gestures.

The program was the opening event of the Rocky River Chamber Music Society's 47th season. The society usually presents performances at nearby West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, which has a superb space for concerts. But renovations there prompted a temporary move to the senior center, whose auditorium is acoustically dry -- and ventilation system too loud -- for optimum musical satisfaction.

The Ciompi players didn't seem at all disturbed by the distractions. They opened with Haydn's Quartet in D major, Op. 20, No. 4, whose rich interplay of ideas and sonorities were delineated with cohesive elegance. The virtuosic first-violin part gave Pritchard no pause: His playing was finely nuanced and fleet, as the music required.

Haydn's towering quartets provided the means for Beethoven to take the genre to its next summits. In the latter's Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1, the Ciompi emphasized the transitional nature of the score, which moves from Classical formality to freer use of structure and musical language.

Each of the movements sounded fresh in the Ciompi's corporate hands. The slow movement wove its timeless spell, and the finale's Russian roots were enhanced by the ensemble's hearty, warm artistry.