An Afternoon in Old Vienna

Cozy tables for four and a buffet of strudel, fruit and coffee transformed Founders Hall into a Viennese cafe on Sunday afternoon. The occasion was the fourth annual Haydnfest, featuring the Angeles String Quartet, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

One had to wonder if this would be the last such occasion, as well, because the Angeles is only two weeks from completing a five-year commitment to record Haydn’s 68 quartets on the Philips Classics label; the full set is scheduled for release in the summer of 2000. The series of concerts has taken place during the recording years.

The program consisted of three hours of music, a luncheon break and an introduction by lecturer Herbert Glass. Not surprisingly, audience members heard the last works heading for the recording studio--the fifth and sixth quartets in the Opus 76 set, and the String Quartet in E, Opus 2, No. 2.

Three-quarters of the recorded collection will have a different second violinist than the present ensemble. Sara Parkins replaced Steven Miller during the fall of 1998, joining veteran violinist Kathleen Lenski, violist Brian Dembow and cellist Stephen Erdody. As this performance demonstrated, she meets the high standards of this fine group.

The Angeles String Quartet has developed a signature sound since its 1988 inception--bright, sometimes almost brittle, and marked by pristine agreement in detail and synchronism. At its best, the members challenge one another in compelling, seemingly personal statements, as they did in the two Opus 76 quartets, both of which received pointed, masterful readings.

Yet, even when they did not scale those heights, as in the String Quartet in F minor, Opus 20, No. 5, the four created intellectually seductive, though not emotionally involving, performances.

Armen Guzelimian joined the roster as a gratifyingly lyrical soloist in the Piano Sonata in C, H. XVI: 50, and as an unflappable, attentive chamber musician in the Piano Trio in E minor, H. XV/12. In the latter work, however, balance was so skewed that the piano part--intended to be a solo with violin obbligato and cello accompaniment--seemed a quiet, florid background to prominent string passages provided by Parkins and Erdody.

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The afternoon’s festivities closed with Haydn’s final foray into quartet writing, the two inner movements of the unfinished String Quartet in D minor, Opus 103, programmed as a farewell salute to the Angeles’ monumental recording project.

On his manuscript, Haydn penned these words, “My strength is gone. I am old and weak,” but his music belies the statement. If his proponents here were also feeling spent at this point, their performance did not betray them.