Music Reviews : Orford Quartet Opens Doheny Series

The Toronto-based Orford String Quartet opened the 1989-90 season of Doheny Mansion soirees Friday with what appeared to be only half the ensemble that had made such a huge impression on the occasion of its local debut a decade ago.

Sophie Renshaw, the excellent young violist who joined perennial Orford violinists Andrew Dawes and Kenneth Perkins a couple of seasons ago, now seems comfortably integrated. The even younger Desmond Hoebig is, however, a very recent addition: a big-toned but undemonstrative cellist--a “blender”--who replaces the effusive, soloistically inclined Denis Brott.

Under the guidance of Dawes, as commanding and intelligent a first violinist as any in the business, the Orford would seem to be adopting a cooler interpretive stance than in its earlier incarnation.

Too cool for Haydn’s “Joke” Quartet, whose punch line--a series of false endings--was projected in appropriate deadpan fashion. But the overall interpretation lacked charm and dynamic variety. Nor was attention paid to the subtler joke embedded in the scherzo’s trio, the single-finger portamenti so gleefully and stylishly executed by the Emerson Quartet’s first violinist at the Ford Theatre last summer.

The Orford proved more convincing in Mendelssohn’s early E- flat Quartet, wisely favoring drama over sentiment and exhibiting breathtaking technical dazzle in the fairy music of the scherzo. Beethoven’s first “Razumovsky” Quartet, the evening’s blockbuster, was given a noble, grandly scaled performance lacking only a shade more assertiveness from the cellist to achieve optimum effect.