Orion Quartet Shines Light on Beethoven

We have heard a lot lately, pro and con, about the healing power of art. Beethoven seems to have had few doubts, writing that anyone who “divines the secret of my music is delivered from the misery that haunts the world.”

The Orion String Quartet provided just that sort of deliverance Sunday at Caltech, opening the Coleman Chamber Concerts at Beckman Auditorium with an utterly engrossing Beethoven program.

The well-chosen schedule began with the F-minor “Serioso” Quartet, Opus 95, matched with Opus 135 in F major. The “Serioso” is all compressed, forward-looking fury, while Opus 135, Beethoven’s last quartet, is one of relaxed and sunny acceptance. The Orions played them with probing clarity, richly expressive without exaggeration. This is one of those ensembles whose violinists, brothers Daniel and Todd Phillips, trade chairs. Either way, the collective sound is the same: light and brightly lyrical on top, with a big, warm foundation from violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy.

The second half was Beethoven’s favorite, his C-sharp-minor monster, Opus 131. Seven movements played as one 40-minute epic, this is one of the ultimate challenges to quartet stamina and imagination. Secrets abound, particularly in the pivotal transformations of the central variations.

The Orions could not divine them all, of course, but with Daniel Phillips in the first chair they did lay out intensely thoughtful and deeply felt views on the piece. Theirs is a characterful interpretation, comfortably inhabited but never complacent.