MUSIC REVIEWS : Brisk Efficiency From Grieg Quartet

If the intention was to help rehabilitate the somewhat tarnished reputation of Norway’s most famous composer in this, the 150th anniversary year of his birth, the bones-and-sinew approach taken by members of the Grieg Festival Quartet--Norwegians all--fell short of persuasiveness Monday at Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism. The program opened the 1993-94 Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music series.

Probably only well-crafted, tightly structured music could benefit from such hard, tough playing. Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 3 and his Cello Sonata in A minor just revealed their lacks in this regard under such X-ray scrutiny.

Violinist Arve Tellefsen and cellist Truls Mork both favored directness and committed lean intensity at the expense of warmth and expansive personal utterance. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who was capable of iridescent accompaniment, took the same tack but also often overpowered his partners.

The three collaborated with violinist Lars Anders Tomter to address Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 3 in the same unrelenting manner. They emphasized fierce power and aggressive drive but missed utterly the heartbreak in the work.

The musicians have been playing together as a quartet only since 1990, and apparently that has not been long enough for them to pass beyond brisk efficiency.

Fortunately, Tomter on his own managed to coax Andsnes into a luminous account of Schumann’s “Marchenbilder,” spreading much-needed aural balm and reaffirming the expressive power of the Romantic style.

With the very first notes, Tomter established an ideally dreamy ebb-and-flow in phrasing, and Andsnes immediately fell into sync, in his very best, properly balanced relationship with his partner. From then on, Schumann became the hero of the evening, here or in the stirring and poignant fanfares of the second picture or in the breathless intimacy of the final love song. The last notes left the audience, which had loudly cheered Brahms, momentarily and properly hushed.