Paul Lueders (oboe), Eric Gratz (violin), Marisa Bushman (viola) and Ignacio Gallego (cello) at the end of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F.

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February 24, 2015 Two splendid concerts on consecutive days: On Feb. 22, the St. Lawrence String Quartet (minus one, plus one) gave vivid accounts of works by Haydn, Dvorak and Osvaldo Golijov. On the 23rd,  the Olmos Ensemble offered Mozart, Kenneth Fuchs and Richard Strauss (sort of), aided by several friends, including the San Antonio Symphony’s superb new principal oboe, Paul Lueders, in his local chamber music debut. The St. Lawrence, established in 1989, has been ensemble in residence at Stanford University since 1998. The San Antonio Chamber Music Society brought the troupe’s original contingent to town in the 1990s (if memory serves), but violinist Geoff Nuttall was the only founding member present for the return visit on the same series. Cellist Christopher Constanza joined the troupe in 2003, and violinist Mark Fewer followed in 2014. Founding violist Lesley Robertson suffered an arm injury just a few days before the concert — a scheduled appearance at Oberlin College two days earlier had to be canceled — and San Francisco Symphony principal viola Jonathan Vinocour flew in on absurdly short notice as a substitute.  The originally scheduled centerpiece of the program in Temple Beth-El was to have been John Adams’s Second Quartet — the St. Lawrence gave the world premiere last month at Stanford. But the sudden change in personnel necessitated replacing the Adams work with Golijov’s “Qohelet” (2011), also composed for the St. Lawrence.  “Qohelet,” inspired by the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, is a meditative, luminous work in two connected movements. The first is quite slow, with gorgeous, rich harmonies that seem to have envolved from Debussy. In the second, the first violin (Mr. Nuttall) carries a line of long sustained notes  high above the other instruments’ driving rhythms. The dramatic arc is somewhat flat, but the subtle, intricate textures and fascinating harmonies hold the attention.  The St. Lawrence opened with Haydn’s String Quartet in E-flat (“The Joke”), Op. 31, No. 3, and closed with Antonin Dvorak’s String Quartet in C, Op. 61. The troupe attended closely to appropriate style, projecting pleasing warmth with minimal vibrato in the Haydn and applying apt portamento to the Dvorak. Chordings were consistently well-balanced and luxurious. In the Dvorak slow movement, the players were admirably patient, allowing the music to unfold in its own good time while maintaining a clear sense of direction and liveliness. And the St. Lawrence seems to have mastered an elusive quality that Robert Mann, founding first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, advocated in his teaching — playing in a way that makes the music seem to be pushing through a resistant medium, thus becoming almost palpable.   might mention a slightly tentative attack on the last note of the adagio (a high D), but then again one might not. This fellow’s potential is unlimited. Olmos founder Mark Ackerman — Mr. Lueders’s predecessor at the symphony — introduced Kenneth Fuchs’s“Quiet in the Land” (2003)with eloquent reminiscences about the sounds and silences of the American prairie, the inspiration for Fuchs’s piece and the backdrop of Mr. Ackerman’s South Dakota boyhood.  The gentle pastoral character of the piece and big-sky modal harmonies somewhat recall Ralph Vaughan Williams. But Mr. Fuchs adds to the mix short melodic tendrils that he weaves into an intricate contrapuntal tapestry. It’s a lovely piece, and it was beautifully played by Martha Long (flute), Ilya Shterenberg (clarinet), Mr. Ackerman (English horn), Ms. Miller and Mr. Gallego. The concert closed with the delightful “Till Eulenspiegel, einmal anders,”  Richard Strauss’s tone poem as shrunk in both duration and instrumentation by Franz Hasenöhrl. Originally scored for a supersized symphony orchestra, the work retains a surprising portion of its character in the arrangement for a compact ensemble of violin, clarinet, horn, bassoon (Sharon Kuster) and double-bass (David Milburn). The performance was entirely delicious.                                                                                                             Mike Greenberg

Kenneth Fuchs Photo: Peter Schaaf 

St. Lawrence String Quartet, Olmos Ensemble

A violist, tout de suite! And an oboist toots sweet

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St. Lawrence String Quartet members Mark Fewer (violin), Lesley Robertson (viola), Geoff Nuttall (violin) and Christopher Costanza (cello). Ms. Robertson suffered an arm injury a few days before the concert, and Jonathan Vinocour flew in on short notice to sit in. Photo of the quartet: Eric Cheng 

The Olmos Ensemble, performing in First Unitarian Universalist Church, opened with Mozart works that gave star turns to two of the San Antonio Symphony’s brightest lights. The veteran principal horn Jeff Garza was well-nigh impeccable in the Horn Quintet in E-flat, with spirited backing by Eric Gratz (violin), Marisa Bushman and Kayleigh Miller (viola) and Ignacio Gallego (cello). Mr. Lueders, who earned his master’s degree from the New England Conservatory just last spring, made a grand impression in the Oboe Quartet in F, with Mr. Gratz, Ms. Bushman and Mr. Gallego. The young (24 years old) oboist displayed ample agility, an elegantly rounded tone and a wonderful messa di voce on sustained notes. Struggling to find a flaw in his playing, one   

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