Refined Playing From Brentano Quartet

Considering that the Van Cliburn Foundation had arranged to have its winner join the Brentano String Quartet for this concert long before pianist Jon Nakamatsu had taken the gold, the level of ensemble playing came as a welcome surprise Tuesday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

The Brentano--violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violist Misha Amory and cellist Michael Kannen--formed in 1992, continues to distinguish itself through a unique sophistication marked by a mellow, often understated sound and a high level of detailed refinement. The unusually large audience at the Irvine Barclay Theatre--30 seats had to be placed on the stage to augment the 756 in the house--may have come looking for a lion, but whatever savagery Nakamatsu’s soloistic arsenal might contain was set aside for elegant agreement.

The five musicians joined in this event--sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County--for a romantic but wholly unmannered performance of Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A, Opus 81. With its frequent solos for cello and viola, this piece seemed particularly suited to the quartet’s singular sound; especially in the Dumka movement, Amory and Kannen contributed rich elegiac passages. Throughout, the quintet brought thoughtful characterizations to bear, disclosing the work’s tenderness, humor and fire with synchronic precision and pristine detail.

The same clearsightedness illuminated the Brentano’s readings of Beethoven’s String Quartet in A, Opus 18, No. 5 and Bartok’s String Quartet No. 3. Even the most energetic sections of the work held an aura of subtle graciousness and finely appointed vulnerability.

The players did not uncover the brutality that others might find in Bartok’s terse writing, but they did disclose its dark questing through a focus on rhythmic nuance and propulsion.