Musical Group Dynamics : Tokyo String Quartet Brings Masterful Sound Blend to O.C.

For its most successful practitioners, the string quartet is not an art form, it’s a way of life. Ensemble values begin to color more than just the immediate performance on stage.

Consider the Tokyo String Quartet and, say, repertory. What goes into program selection?

“We always try to combine pieces from different periods, with different characters, and explore those differences,” violinist Kikuei Ikeda said in a recent interview. “That is more interesting for the audience, and at the same time, the pieces help each other.”

And what was it like to play a matched set of Amati instruments for many years?

“It’s really fascinating to play on instruments by the same maker. They help each other as a group.”

Indeed, there is more talk about helpfulness and group dynamics in a conversation with Ikeda than in a “Sesame Street” episode. The much- and justly celebrated Tokyo Quartet, after all, has been in business for 22 years.

The newest member is first violinist Peter Oundjian, who joined Ikeda and founding violist Kazuhide Isomura and cellist Sadao Harada 10 years ago.

“It’s amazing, really,” Ikeda said about the group’s longevity. “People think Peter is new, but these 10 years are the longest we have been without a new member. We’re like family now.”

As with most families, there are quarrels, but then reconciling tension is what quartets are all about.

“The bottom line,” according to Ikeda, “is that we respect each other. That’s most important. We can come back together after disagreement.”

This sort of interaction is a large part of why Ikeda found himself playing in a quartet. He originally studied conducting, but missed making the music himself. On the other hand, orchestral musicians seldom participate directly in interpretive decisions.

“For me, quartet playing has both sides of music-making. There’s something special which no other formation has--partly the sound, I think. I never played in a quartet until I was 18--and ever since it’s been like a disease,” he said, laughing.

Among the symptoms of the disease, count a schedule that includes 125 concerts each year.

“That’s too much,” Ikeda said, and here his ready laugh has a rueful bite. “That’s the hardest thing in our life. You have certain priorities, but sometimes you can’t say no.

“That’s a lesson we still have to learn,” he said. “We spend time together too much--I see them more than my children.”

The current tour brings the Tokyo Quartet to the Irvine Barclay Theatre tonight, following appearances in Los Alamos and San Diego. Then it’s on through Santa Barbara, Northern California, Alaska, western Canada, and then home to New York.

The pieces on the IBT program are Schubert’s Quartet No. 8 in B-flat, the Bartok Fourth, and Brahms’ C-minor Quartet, Opus 51, No. 1. Beyond their mutual helpfulness lies a more pragmatic reason for this program.

“Recording always comes into our planning,” Ikeda said. “We quite often have projects going. We’re recording all the Schubert quartets now, and later we will do the Bartok cycle.”

Inevitably, helpfulness crops up here too.

“I think it helps to play all of a composer’s quartets,” Ikeda said, “so we can relate them to each other and see how the composer developed.”

For the Tokyo Quartet, it seems, the sum must be greater than than the parts, else why bother. Two years ago they returned the matched Amati instruments lent to them by the Corcoran Gallery, but Ikeda suggests that the years with those instruments has had an ongoing impact on the quartet’s sound blend.

They now play on their own instruments: a Guarneri del Gesu for Oundjian, a Stradivari for Ikeda, a Da Salo for Isomura and a Guadagnini for Harada--a mixed lot, maybe, but as noble as they come. Yet the four musicians have lost none of their amazing unity of sound, as anyone who heard their last local visit can attest.

That was in March, presenting a Mozart program on the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series. Ikeda, for one, is not sorry to see the Mozart year coming to a close, if only so that audiences will return to a more varied musical diet.

“Sometimes,” Ikeda said, “I really feel for the audience.”

* The Tokyo String Quartet plays at 8 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. Tickets: $10 to $20. Presented by the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Laguna Chamber Music Society. Information: (714) 553-2422.