Vigor, Polish and Technique From the Shanghai Quartet

Mysteriously, on any given summer night, the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is a chillier venue than the Hollywood Bowl, just across the freeway. The second chamber music event of the 2001 season at the Ford, Monday night, however, warmed up the audience enough to keep it in the seats and clearly happy.

Indeed, the performance by the exceptional Shanghai Quartet proved a demonstration of interpretive polish, healthy vigor and technical accomplishment.

Now nearing the end of its third decade, the young-looking string quartet--the cellist, Nicholas Tzavaras, is the new member since the ensemble last visited here 13 months ago--has the advantages of both experience and youthfulness. Mechanically near-flawless, boasting seamless legato, matching tone qualities and the twin virtues of articulation and blend, the Shanghai’s members also think alike and project their musicality effortlessly.

Their most admirable playing came first, in the exposing B-flat Quartet, K. 589, of Mozart, which they invested with a huge but appropriate range of dynamics, exquisite detailing and flashy tempos. Samuel Barber’s Opus 11 Quartet emerged less colorful than it can be, and more timidly, too. The players--including violinists Weigang Li and Yiwen Jiang and violist Honggang Li--showed less conviction here than in the rest of the program.

The evening ended with a most admirable illumination of Beethoven’s C-major “Razumovsky” Quartet, Opus 59, No. 3, in which each of the players demonstrated individual virtuosity and the ensemble as a group shone.

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* Chamber Music Under the Stars at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood, continues Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. with an appearance by the Eroica Trio. $12-$20. (323) 4361-3673.