MUSIC REVIEW : Lark Quartet Uneven During Recital at SDSU

The Lark Quartet may be as agile as its avian namesake, but external circumstances continue to hamper its artistic flights. Change of personnel has been the young ensemble’s nemesis since its began its residency at San Diego State University in the fall of 1988.

At that time, the four-woman string quartet was breaking in a new first violinist. Now that Eva Gruesser is firmly ensconced in that crucial chair, the quartet has spent this season breaking in yet another player, cellist Astrid Schween, who replaced Laura Sewell, one of Lark’s founding members.

Understandably, refinement is not this quartet’s strong suit. In their Wednesday evening concert at SDSU’s Smith Recital Hall, the centerpiece of the university’s weeklong chamber music festival, they compensated with spirit, pluck, and occasional bursts of inspiration.

Their programming--Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms--surely charted no new territory, but their approach was far from perfunctory. And although the Lark Quartet projects a taut, lean sonority, they revealed more of their musical personality in the lush strains of Brahms’ C Minor Quartet, Op 51, No. 1, than in the evening’s more Classical repertory.

In the Brahms slow “Romanze,” they found a warm, burnished sonority that caressed its lyrical, soulful themes. Schween’s incisive, well-focused playing propelled the Brahms admirably.

The Lark opened with its weakest offering, Mozart’s F Major Quartet, K 590. In this late Mozart Quartet, their sense of ensemble began tenuously and went downhill. The finale was almost painful in its sonic distortion. Gruesser is an appropriately aggressive player, but her proclivity for strident attacks and harsh overplaying in agitated movements destroyed the equilibrium of Mozart’s demanding, late composition. For this ensemble, the Mozart is a piece that needs significant seasoning.

The group’s temperament was more attuned to the scrappy extroversion of Beethoven’s F Major Quartet, Op. 18, No. 1. Notable was the mellow Adagio affettuoso , with its nimble solos exchanged in respectful, egalitarian good humor. Violist Anna Kruger made the best of her bright, edgy sound, and second violinist Robin Mayforth held her own honorably, a considerable feat considering Gruesser’s overbearing authority.