Music Reviews : ‘Mozart Celebration 1991’ Continues

There wasn’t much unusual or amiss about the Angeles Quartet program, Thursday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. The ensemble continued the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s “Mozart Celebration 1991” in true-blue Juilliard Quartet fashion, opening with a classical warm-up, wrestling with the 20th-Century before intermission and closing with a major masterwork.

The Angeles foursome--Kathleen Lenski and Roger Wilkie, violins; Brian Dembow, viola, and Stephen Erdody, cello--tossed off a warm yet vigorous performance of Haydn’s Quartet in B-flat, Opus 76, No. 4 (“Sunrise”), though the playing turned a bit scrappy at the acceleration in the Finale.

In Bartok’s downcast Quartet No. 6--where the beleaguered composer toned down some but not all of the abrasive energy of the middle quartets--the Angeles generally steered clear from whatever edge the music has. Almost everything seemed to have a dark, suave sheen in an effort to make late Bartok sound as beautiful as possible. However, the players did manage to dig into the grotesqueries of the third movement with welcome ferocity.

Heiichiro Ohyama--until recently a familiar face at the Los Angeles Philharmonic--turned up as the outboard violist in Mozart’s Quintet in G minor, K. 516. Oddly, the quartet’s balance--which had leaned heavily in favor of the lower strings earlier--didn’t change much with the added voice.

Yet, with Ohyama totally integrated into the blend, the Angeles-plus-one turned in the most heartfelt, most polished and most searching performance of the evening, catching and projecting the melancholy strain of the odd-numbered movements particularly well.