Rossetti String Quartet Displays Skill, Passion

Despite summer morning heat and the aural and breeze-driven distractions of playing outdoors, chamber music at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is a pleasantness to savor. When the Brunch Classics series presents a new and provocative ensemble, pleasantness turns tojoy.

The Rossetti String Quartet, just three years in business, first played here--in the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series--in April. Sunday morning at the Ford, it lived up to theglowing reports of that earlier visit.

The group’s present achievement is stunning and its future brilliant. Its members, violinists Nina Bodnar and Henry Gronnier, violist Thomas Diener and guest cellist Eric Gaenslen--the fiery Cecilia Tsan is away for the month of June--are of one mind and one musical attack. A generous program, encompassing Beethoven’s C-minor Quartet, Opus 18, No. 4, the Debussy Quartet and Brahms’ Piano Quintet, Opus 34, exposed the quartet to deep scrutiny, and it triumphed.

The tough agenda elicited a deep resonance of spirit and execution. Beethoven’s glowering C-minor quartet showed the players’ faceted dramatic and lyric resources and their dynamic breadth. The Debussy revealed polished finesse and an unforced command of detail.

With the sensitive and solid Armen Guzelimian at the piano (the problem of string/piano balance was mostly ameliorated here by the outdoor placement), the Rossetti gave Brahms’ F-minor Quintet deserved coherence and clarity in a substantial and transparent performance that served both its intellect and its muscle.