Music Reviews : The Smithson Quartet at the Doheny Mansion

The period-performance movement has come an astonishingly long way since the time, hardly more than a decade ago, when authenticity was synonymous with sluggish tempos and thin sonorities produced by cautious people lacking the technical skills to compete successfully on modern instruments.

Just how far things have progressed was displayed on Friday by the Smithson Quartet, making its local debut at the Doheny Mansion under the auspices of the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College.

The resident quartet of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington--violinists Jaap Schroeder and Marilyn McDonald, violist Judson Griffin, cellist Kenneth Slowik--produces a sizable ensemble tone, enhanced (and this would have been unthinkable a decade ago) by expressive vibrato. Their interpretations project a splendid robustness, facilitated by technical polish. Clearly, these people are not antiquarians by default.

Friday’s program offered familiar repertory, but not in the usual treatment: Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven, customarily sacrificed as warmups for the big, Romantic pieces, were the big pieces on this occasion.

Mozart’s Quartet in D minor, K. 421, exhibited a remarkable degree of dynamic variety within the narrow confines suggested by the composer and the capabilities of the old instruments.

Increased pressure was applied to the gut strings for the brilliantly nervy Quartet in D, Opus 76, No. 5, of Haydn, resulting in an edgier, more projectile sonority, while the lushest sound of all was reserved fittingly for the Quartet in F from Beethoven’s Opus 18.

The single, delectable encore: an airborne reading of the minuet from Mozart’s Quartet in E-flat, K. 428.