Lydian Quartet Takes a Personable Approach

The seventh season of chamber music at the Orange County Performing Arts Center got off to an inviting start Thursday thanks to the Lydian String Quartet, a veteran foursome that conveyed a sense of musical comfort and an amiable persona.

Its naturalness provided a particularly affecting Southern California premiere of John Harbison’s String Quartet No. 3. This work was first performed by the ensemble in 1994, following its commission for the Lydian by Brandeis University in Massachusetts, where the quartet is in residence.

As preface during the Founders Hall concert, first violinist Daniel Stepner described the relationship of the four parts in the score as “dancers moving together,” alluding to the preponderance of chordal motion. His reference also illuminated the character of the composition, a delicately colored single-movement study in shifting moods imbued with a sense of searching tenderness, even in episodes made tense through fitful repetition.

Harbison’s piece followed a crisp, attractive reading of Haydn’s Quartet in E-flat, Opus 20, No. 1, and benefited from the same personable thoughtfulness that violinists Stepner and Judith Eissenberg, violist Mary Ruth Ray and cellist Rhonda Rider had brought to the previous work.

In Haydn’s first “Sun” Quartet--a title that persisted because of a drawing of the sun that appeared on the second published edition of the six Opus 20 quartets--the players brought unassuming unanimity to both mood and detail and applied a warm timbre to gently conversant, straightforward statements.

Although a round-toned sense of personable familiarity sustained much of the program, it was not sufficient to uphold continuity in the opening movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat, Opus 130, which easily becomes disjointed without a lean, taut approach. Elsewhere, the Lydian’s finely detailed focus reaped many rewards, notably in a touching and understated Cavatina.

A medley by Harbison based on songs by Victor Young and set for these musicians provided the single encore and demonstrated the eclecticism of both composer and performers.