St. Petersburg quartet shines

In a welcome return to the Music Guild series at Cal State Northridge on Monday night, the St. Petersburg String Quartet served up a program that focused upon this group’s musical and emotional core. Yet it took some last-minute reshuffling of the announced lineup to reach this point.

The most significant addition was an amazingly mature Quartet No. 1 by Natalya Medvedovskaya, who wrote it at age 18 (she’s now 29). Only eight minutes long, the piece has a tight, arching structure, good ideas that are bounced around the instruments and a restless, dramatic temperament audibly handed down from Shostakovich.

Earlier, the quartet turned to a St. Petersburg touchstone, Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 4. Its first recording for Sony (now deleted from the catalog, alas) is the most fevered, passionate one I’ve ever heard; the recent remake on Hyperion is slower, warmer, with less of an edge. This performance juxtaposed elements of both.

In place of Smetana’s “From My Life” Quartet, the St. Petersburg substituted zesty renditions of two entries, one in the form of waltz and the other in Hungarian style, from another calling card, Glazunov’s “Five Novelettes.” And the foursome swept into Dvorak’s Quartet No. 14 with much enthusiasm and its tightest ensemble work of the evening.

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St. Petersburg Quartet

Where: Beverly Hills High School, 241 Moreno Ave., Beverly Hills

When: Thursday, 8 p.m.

Price: $9-$26

Contact: (323) 954-0404