Music Reviews : Juilliard Quartet Ends Guild Season

When the Juilliard String Quartet steps on stage it always has to contend with memories of its own best self. It proved unequal to the competition in an uncharacteristically downbeat program in the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

Perhaps unfairly, considering the Juilliard’s depth at each position, we tend to regard the quartet and its leader, first violinist Robert Mann, as synonymous.

There can, however, be no denying that the group’s brilliant sound and aggressive spirit derives from the intensity of this extraordinary musician, its founder in 1946 and sole remaining original member.

On Wednesday, the years--he will be 72 in a few months--seemed to weigh on Mann. His playing in the opener, Haydn’s sublime, seldom-heard Quartet in B minor, Opus 64, No. 2, was often faint-toned and almost consistently under the note.

In the ensuing Quartet No. 13 of Shostakovich--another uncompromisingly bleak, death-obsessed musing from the composer’s last years--the writing is less first-violin centered. Here one could appreciate the strength of the other (younger) players, second violinist Joel Smirnoff, violist Samuel Rhodes and cellist Joel Krosnick, and Mann’s alert, powerful leadership.

The most illuminating and evocative playing of the evening occurred in the slow movement of Beethoven’s last quartet, Opus 135, in which the capacity audience was treated to some prime, four-part Juilliard concentration and technical finish.

But the oddly chosen encore, the very dark (in the evening’s context almost Shostakovich-like) Andante from the very young Mozart’s K. 168, ended the concert, and the current Music Guild season, on a spiritual down note.