Colorado Quartet delves into composers’ souls

Colorado Quartet delves into composers’ souls

By John Mangum

The Colorado String Quartet burst onto the chamber music scene
12 years ago and they haven’t looked back since.

The group won both the Naumberg Chamber Music Award and First
Prize at the Banff International string Competition in a 10 day
period in 1983. These awards, two of chamber music’s highest
honors, announced the Colorado String Quartet as one of the world’s
major chamber groups.

Julie Rosenfeld, one of the quartet’s two violinists, believes
that the group’s ability to communicate with an audience helped to
make them so popular.

"We play in a way that gets the audience very involved in what
we’re doing musically," Rosenfeld says. "We are an emotional group.
We like to take whatever things the composer has written and bring
them to the audience.

"I think the audience responds to the fact that we find the
music in our souls. We are always trying to bring the audience into
us."

Violinist Deborah Redding, violist Francesca Martin Silos and
cellist Diane Chaplin, join Rosenfeld to bring their personal style
to Los Angeles. The quartet plays a program of Beethoven, Brahms
and Krzywicki at Schoenberg Hall Sunday afternoon.

Beethoven’s Op. 18 No. 3 comes from the first group of string
quartets the composer published. Composed in a largely classical
style, they reveal the master’s debt to his teacher Haydn.

"The Beethoven is a classical piece contemporary with Mozart and
Haydn," Rosenfeld explains. "In it, though, one can already see the
genius that was going to develop in Beethoven’s musical language.
He wants to be doing more than he’s allowed to do in the classical
style."

The piece by contemporary composer Jan Krzywicki lies far from
the classical world of Beethoven’s early quartets. Composed in 1994
specifically for the Colorado String Quartet, the work is a single
movement in six sections played without a pause.

"The Krzywicki piece is full of angst," Rosenfeld says. "It uses
the language of the 20th century. The audience will find it
gut-wrenching and beautiful in places."

This characterization could also describe Brahms’ Quartet in
B-flat, Op. 67. Brahms spoke much more restrained musical language
than contemporary composers do, which guarantees that his quartet
will differ sharply from Krzywicki’s.

"Brahms was at the height of his powers when he wrote this
quartet," says Rosenfeld. "It’s full of everything everyone loves
about Brahms ­ the big melodies.

"We try to play it in a very lush style because it’s a very
emotional piece. It’s kind of a release from the intense emotions
of the Krzywicki."

Chamber music has long provided composers with a way to play out
their strongest feelings. The string quartet continues to reign as
the most popular form of chamber music ever since Haydn created it
in the mid-17th century.

Because of the nature of the string quartet, some of western
music’s most powerful works turn up in the genre. Since Haydn,
composers have used the dialogue between the four stringed
instruments as a forum to discuss their innermost feelings and
thoughts musically.

"Personally, I think it’s some of the greatest music ever
written," Rosenfeld says. "Most composers put their most profound
thoughts into chamber music."

MUSIC: UCLA Center for the Performing Arts presents the Colorado
String Quartet at Schoenberg Hall Sunday, Feb. 12 at 4 p.m. TIX:
$28, $9 for students. For more info call (310) 825-2101.