A Focused Quartet’s Insights

When the St. Petersburg String Quartet returned to the Music Guild’s Cal State Northridge series Monday night, a piece by Shostakovich was the sparkplug of the evening. This should come as no surprise to those who have followed the St. Petersburg’s first, excellent, unfortunately aborted recorded cycle of Shostakovich quartets for Sony, as well as their evolving second attempt for Hyperion (the next volume containing Quartets Nos. 5, 7 and 9 is due out in May). While the players won’t give you the tight, unanimous blend that other quartets display in Shostakovich, they do bring two qualities that are more important--extraordinary intensity and depth.

This time, along with pianist Bernadene Blaha, the St. Petersburg reached outside the quartet cycle for a close relative, the Piano Quintet--a symmetrically balanced, five-movement work with a short, demonic scherzo at its core. They paid unswerving attention to the arching structures within movements, taking their time building the broad fugue of the Adagio into an overwhelming climax, making scorching work of the Scherzo, sweeping their guest pianist right along. This intensity spilled into the Brahms Piano Quintet after intermission, with a vehement, edgy approach that this work could just barely contain.

The whirling, reel-like Orientale from Glazunov’s neglected Five Novelettes was the marvelous encore, along with two more Novelettes with equally fetching melodic appeal, Alla Spagnuola and Interludium in modo antico.

*

* St. Petersburg Quartet repeats this program tonight at 8, Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 8th St., L.A. $7 to $24. (310) 552-3030.