MUSIC REVIEWS : Borodin Quartet in Polished Playing

For no apparent reason the Borodin Quartet limited its program Saturday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre to a single year in chamber music history, 1876, the year that saw the premieres of the two Third Quartets of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

These are not holy works in the string quartet repertory. Critics have noted their relative weaknesses and both turn up fairly rarely on chamber-music programs. While the Borodin didn’t entirely make their flaws disappear, it did make them seem beside the point, in performances of graceful polish and deep musicality.

Founded in 1945 and still including two of its original members--violist Dmitri Shebalin and cellist Valentin Berlinsky, who were joined by violinists Mikhail Kopelman and Andrei Abramenkov in 1974--the Borodin is rightly counted among the world’s elite quartets, and it proved again why.

Surely there are string quartets that play better technically (though not many). What impressed most about the Borodin on Saturday was its carefully calibrated, elegantly and purposefully executed interpretations.

The conception for Brahms was a Classical one, which allowed all of this work’s charm and naivete to shine through clearly and Kopelman to lead the way in wonderfully slippery but focused song.

Tchaikovsky’s Third emerged on a vaster canvas, with the players as equals and a broader expressive, dynamic and tempo scheme. The groups’ characteristic vibrato--wide and fast--came flavorfully into evidence. With this arsenal, the players made the Andante funebre e doloroso, one of Tchaikovsky’s most striking movements, into a stark, dramatic landscape.

The delectable encore was the second of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet.