Quartet Grandly Wraps Its Mozart, Bartok Cycle

The American String Quartet has played them all now, splendidly and in top form--all of Mozart’s quintets and Bartok’s quartets in a six-year cycle in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The cycle did not progress chronologically. On Thursday, the group--violinists Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violist Daniel Avshalomov and cellist David Geber--reached back to early works, Mozart’s first venture in the form, K. 174, and Bartok’s Second Quartet.

Whatever problems Mozart had in working out the intricacies of the form later, he seems to be glorying here in discovering the possibilities of a second viola (guest Brian Dembow, of the Angeles Quartet). It can add light or darkness to the texture, pair off in various ways with other instruments or simply sing as the fifth voice in the lovely operatic ensemble of the second movement. The American’s bright, forward and warm sound perfectly suited this genial, lively work.

The low number of Bartok’s Second Quartet is deceptive. Composed during World War I, when Bartok was in his mid-30s, the work reflects little if any youthful optimism. His friend and fellow composer Zoltan Kodaly labeled the three movements “A Quiet Life,” “Joy” and “Sorrow.” But it’s hard to imagine how he heard “quiet” in the intense, compacted struggles of the first movement or “joy” in the powerful rhythmic drive of the second. Mania might be a better word.

Certainly, the last movement is sorrowful, although that word doesn’t quite capture the composer’s portrayal of a desolate, graveyard landscape. There are some hints but also some doubts of a furious apocalyptic resurrection. The Americans made it a killer.

They ended the program with Dvorak’s bucolic Quartet in E flat, Opus 51, for all the usual reasons. You don’t end with the most contemporary piece; you don’t send the audience out in a suicidal mood.

Unfortunately, Dvorak’s subdued, comforting piece seemed unequal to the task of vanquishing Bartok’s ghosts.