POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Borromeo String Quartet Shines

With its new violist, Hsin-Yun Huang, honoring a previous solo engagement with the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Borromeo String Quartet had to do some scrambling to get its Music Guild concert together Monday night at Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall in Long Beach.

But get it together the Borromeo--violinists Nicholas Kitchen and Ruggero Allifranchini, cellist Yeesun Kim (and Huang)--very much did. It didn’t hurt that these musicians had a wild card to play--the husband-wife team of Kitchen and Kim.

The two offered an obviously meticulously rehearsed, lived-in performance of Kodaly’s 1914 Duo, Opus 7. A 20-plus minute work of epic breadth, passionate and harrowing moods, and wide-ranging sonority, the Duo belongs firmly in the top echelon of 20th-Century chamber music. It’s the kind of dramatic work that can’t be overstated, and Kitchen/Kim dug into it with great physical force, hugely ringing but never raspy sound and dead-center timing.

This was followed by an exciting revisit to Mendelssohn’s beloved Octet, with four Los Angeles Philharmonic members--Lyndon Taylor, violin; Evan Wilson and Ralph Fielding, violas; Ronald Leonard, cello--and violinist Roger Wilkie making up the difference. Could it be that these performers were having a competitive good time? The outer movements really took flight, in fluid, gloriously vibrant readings. The inner movements clicked only slightly less well, some momentary ensemble problems the exception. That Scherzo is tricky.

The concert--repeated Tuesday at Pierce College and tonight at the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre --began with an expressive--and perhaps a bit overdone--account of Mozart’s String Quintet, K. 515.