Angeles Quartet Offers Polished Gems

The Angeles Quartet’s Haydn project continues apace. And, beginning a fifth season of playing all of Haydn’s string quartets, the ensemble introduced a new second violinist to the ensemble Wednesday night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Sara Parkins is the new member--replacing Steven Miller. She joins violinist Kathleen Lenski, violist Brian Dembow and cellist Stephen Erdody in this journey. In four works, from early to late quartets, with one from the middle period, the young violinist easily fulfilled her role in the personnel mix, matching the accomplishment and musical acuity of the 10-year-old ensemble.

Only at the beginning of the evening, in the B-minor Quartet, Opus 33, No. 1, did the two violins flirt with metallic and thin tone; thereafter, mellowness--the kind one has come to expect from the Angeles Quartet--reigned.

As usual, the variety, invention, wit and depth in Haydn’s brilliant creations delighted and surprised.

Never meddling with the musical business at hand, the ensemble contributed alertness, flawless surfaces and transparent probing to each of the works: the early Quartet in B flat, Opus 1, No. 1, with its two minuets surrounding an aria-like central Adagio (beautifully accomplished by Lenski), and the pungent, streamlined Quartets in B flat and F sharp minor from Opus 50, with their bright, complex finales and exquisite slow movements.

These works are a treasure trove, and the Angeles ensemble clearly enjoys revealing its contents.