Music Review : Ridge Quartet Opens Bing Series at LACMA

The Ridge Quartet may have begun as the youngest quartet ever presented at Carnegie Hall, but that was some time ago. Originally formed in 1979 at the San Francisco Conservatory and later reformed at the Curtis Institute, with continuing personnel changes along the way, the ensemble has by now reached maturity--even if the foursome still retains a generous amount of the youthful exuberance that has impressed listeners in the past.

Opening the Bing Concerts series at the County Museum of Art on Wednesday night, founding members/violinists of the Ridge Quartet Krista Bennion Feeney and Robert Rinehart, along with violist Maria Lambros and cellist Peter Wyrick, presented a program of three familiar but definitely difficult string quartets: Beethoven’s Opus 95, Bartok’s Fourth and Smetana’s Quartet in E minor “From My Life.” A full house of listeners greeted them warmly.

The ensemble’s commanding musicianship had no trouble yielding a satisfying result. They play forcefully but musically, only in rare moments sacrificing stylistic and technical accuracy.

If one had to quibble, excessive body swaying, audible inhaling and jerky head movements would probably be among the complaints. Also, in the Allegretto pizzicato movement of the Bartok, snap pizzicatos were delivered with such force that the movement had to be started over twice, due to broken strings.

Otherwise, the early 20th-Century masterwork received an invigorating reading filled with breathtaking dynamic changes and apt attention to nuance. Minor discrepancies with the composer’s intentions occured now and then, such as the final cadence of the second movement where the score calls for a short pizzicato chord from the cello and Wyrick allowed the chord to ring out indefinitely.

The late Beethoven quartet also proved a good vehicle to demonstrate the ensemble’s intensity and agility. Each movement proceeded without heaviness, avoiding excessive melancholy or broodiness.

The program closed with the autobiographical Smetana work, a more introverted, intimate work than the other fare. Here, the players fittingly brought out the music’s sentimentality and nostalgia with taste and elegance.