Opus One
E pluribus unum
November 14, 2012The piano quartet Opus One was newly formed when it first appeared in San Antonio in 1999, on the Tuesday Musical Club series. The troupe returned after too long an absence for the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Nov. 11 in Temple Beth-El, and produced consistently unified performances of works by Beethoven, Dvorak and Roberto Sierra.
Such unity of sound and approach was especially gratifying in view of the distinguished career that each of the players has built outside the group -- before and after its formation -- as a soloist and chamber musician.
Their names are widely familiar to classical music audiences -- the violinist Ida Kavafian, the violist Steven Tenenbom, the cellist Peter Wiley and the pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. Ms. Kavafian has appeared in San Antonio previously with the Tuesday Musical Club, in a joint recital with her sister, the violinist Ani Kavafian. Ms. McDermott first appeared locally in a brilliant 1996 solo recital for the Tuesday Musical Club and returned in 2004 with the violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg. Mr. Tenenbom was here several times as a member of the Orion String Quartet. Mr. Wiley has appeared locally as a member of the Beaux Arts Trio and the Guarneri Quartet.
That’s a lot of diversity of experience to aggregate into the single mind that is the ideal for a chamber group. Yet the three string players projected remarkably matched sounds -- rich, bright with overtones and spiced with the sonic equivalent of freshly cracked pepper.
The performances were well planned, precise in ensemble and subtly attentive to stylistic distinctions.
The troupe’s patrician but lively account of Beethoven’s early Quartet in E-flat, Op. 16, properly situated that work in the classical camp, heavily influenced by Haydn. Each of the three string players delivered lovely melodic lines in the central andante cantabile, and Ms. McDermott’s extraordinary control of dynamics and articulation made the jolly finale sound more eloquent than usual.
The story was much the same in Dvorak’s Quartet in E-flat, Op. 87. The Bohemian character of this music was clearly present, but not overstated.
The centerpiece was Mr. Sierra’s remarkable “Fuego de Angel,” composed for Opus One and first performed last year at Music from Angel Fire, the highly regarded summer music festival in northern New Mexico.
As we’ve come to expect from Mr. Sierra, the piece cunningly fuses European Modernism with Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Most notable among its four movements are the opening “El Angel y las Sombras,” which opens spare and quiet, almost furtive, and steadily gains energy, culminating in a heart-pounding chase; and the very beautiful third movement, “La Vision del Angel,” with its serpentine melodic material, slinky motion and shimmering layers.
Mike Greenberg
