MUSIC REVIEW : Shanghai Quartet Tackles Beethoven With Youthful Vigor

The Shanghai Quartet probably has all the virtues that a fairly youthful quartet can and should have--intensity, vibrancy and commitment, in addition to fine technique and ensemble.

What it mostly lacks, autumnal wisdom, undoubtedly only the wearing process of time can bring.

Such were the impressions when the Quartet played a program consisting mostly of Beethoven quartets in B-flat--Opus 18, No. 6 and Opus 130--on Wednesday in the Leo S. Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The two quartets are separated by an epochal quarter century and yet related in sharing disjunctive structure. Violinists Weigang Li and Honggang Li (who are brothers), violist Zheng Wang and cellist James Wilson applied similar vigor and power and hot-blooded intensity to each.

They launched the earlier (1800) work with vibrant, joyful sunniness and confidence. They skated through the awkward syncopations and accenting of the Scherzo. But they sounded disconnected from the mood that opens the last movement--”La Malinconia” (Melancholy)--and seemed more at home when the tempo revved up.

Opus 130 (1825) emerged with power and grace, to be sure, but not with deep introspection. In the full-throated statements of the first movement, the Quartet seemed more to seize the heavens by the throat rather than witness the heavens opening up. They were touching in the Cavatina, but not heartbreaking. This was not an older man’s work.

The program also included the first Los Angeles performance of Long Zhou’s “Song of the Ch’in,” an evocative, eight-minute tone painting applying sophisticated compositional techniques to what sound like fragments of traditional Chinese melodies.

As an encore, the quartet offered Puccini’s “Chrysanthemums,” proving that the composer did not confine his pathetic-heroic strain solely to opera.