It is early in their career and the info on the members of the Parker Quartet has more to say about who they’ve studied with (the Cleveland Quartet, the Emerson, the Tokyo and the Takacs) than about where they have played. But if their performance at the Phillips Collection on Sunday is anything to go by, this is a quartet that deserves close attention.
First of all, they already have a distinctive personality. It’s characterized by an ensemble that does not sound like an end in itself but, rather, like the result of a focus on the shape, color and weight of each individual line. Their sound is, at the same time, big and subtle. They propel the music irresistibly but with extraordinary grace and flexibility and, above all, they make sense of the music.
Their program was the sort that a young group might take on — the Bartók String Quartet No. 2, the Beethoven Op. 59, No. 2, and, to begin with, the powerful and well-crafted “Nightfields I-II-III” by Joan Tower. They are all big, energetic and technically demanding pieces that an ensemble can make a splash with just by getting through them athletically. What was most impressive about this performance, however, was that virtuosity never seemed to hold the spotlight. Instead it was Bartók’s passion and introspection, Beethoven’s astonishing moodiness and the fine-tuning of Tower’s play on timbres that were projected with energy, and the exhilaration of a risk well taken. |
