Folk Tunes Enliven Chilingirian Fare

As announced, the Chilingirian Quartet’s program at Glendale’s Alex Theatre on Saturday night was to have been a more or less traditional string quartet trilogy--Haydn, Bartok and Beethoven.

But perhaps with an eye toward Glendale’s large, loyal Armenian community, first violinist Levon Chilingirian--who is of Armenian extraction--decided late in the game to swap Bartok’s Quartet No. 5 for some local color from the old country: a selection of seven rarely played Komitas folk song settings as transcribed for quartet by Sarkis Aslamazian.

Evidently, word didn’t get out in time; attendance was sparse. But those who came heard some delightful music--a gentle dance, a mournful waltz-like tune, ghostly apparitions, and always, very attractive melodies with distinctive descending harmonies that many of us probably first encountered in the music of Khachaturian.

The big, ceaselessly inspired, radically structured Beethoven Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Opus 131, receives fewer performances than most of its brethren.

Music appreciation “experts” used to give this work a fearsome reputation, which is nonsense; the piece has immediate ear appeal through all its stream-of-consciousness twists and turns, and questions with no answers.

The Chilingirians must love it, too; they leaned into the music with a swiftly paced ardor that suggested great affection. Perhaps the lengthy central andante frayed a bit in concentration, and the ensemble got rougher in the finale, after 35 continuous minutes of playing. But the sharp rhythmic attacks of the finale and the mischievous quality of the Presto movement were right on the dot.

At the top of the evening, the Chilingirians displayed robust, hearty, warm tone quality in Haydn’s Quartet in D, Opus 71, No. 2, giving the rhythms of the Menuetto a rustic flavor.