Rackham Auditorium seats 1,200 people, and Saturday night's crowd was standing-room only. Chamber music doesn't usually attract such crowds, but this performance by the Guarneri and Orion String Quartets was surely special - and may prove to be one of the most interesting concerts of this University Musical Society season.
The program began with the Orion Quartet, joined by Guarneri's violist Michael Tree, playing Mozart's "Viola Quintet in G-minor." The opening measures were tentative and slightly out of tune, but the group began to groove by mid-movement. And in the Adagio ma non troppo, the pinched and almost uncontrollably soft sound of violinist Daniel Phillips began to open and sing. In a gorgeous, rocking lullaby, Phillips' tone settled gently down on a blanket of accompaniment.
Phillips sailed through the final Allegro, spilling his sound like water over the tops of runs. Motives were tossed from player to player with tuning that was almost, but not quite, consistent.
It could be said that the Orion String Quartet was the evening's opening act. And to have the Quartet-in-Residence of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as an opener speaks volumes about the night's main attraction, the Guarneri String Quartet.
The Guarneri Quartet has the longest-running collaboration of any string quartet anywhere. The founding members, Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree and David Soyer, have played together since 1964. In a business that suffers quick turnover and venerates maturity, the Guarneri String Quartet reigns supreme.
The players' connection was immediately apparent in the "Sextet for Strings in A-major" by Antonin Dvorak. After more than 30 years together, the musicians have rich and nearly indistinguishable timbres.
At times the violist overshot a note or the cellist bent a pitch, but exquisite musicianship made all pardonable. The group seemed guided by intuition rather than a leader. Ensemble mechanics are no longer the issue for the Guarneri Quartet - music is.
To make a sextet, Guarneri's members were joined by Orion's violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy. Yet the quartet, which is the subject of several books and a full-length film, has a bond so strong that Tenenbom and Eddy were obvious intruders. Their more abrasive style was out of place.
The second movement, Dumka, featured some of the night's finest playing. Most amazing was the Czech folk idiom, authentic and unstrained. Unreal technique ended the exhilarating Presto.
It seemed a shame to further dilute the Guarneri bond by adding two more players to the ensemble. But the beauty of the "Octet in E-flat major" by Felix Mendelssohn made the ambitious endeavor worthwhile.
The two quartets were positioned facing each other, with Steinhardt at the helm. The octet's opening, inspired by a theme by Haydn, was infused with energy.
Although the first movement was lovely, the group's style was hard to grasp at the beginning of the second movement, Andante. But Steinhardt soon initiated a scale where the players' sounds blended and overlapped in a heavenly ascent.
In the Scherzo, amazing technique was of secondary interest. The light, easy feel was reminiscent of another famous Mendelssohn scherzo and the movement's ending left one breathless.
Any lingering doubts about a collaboration between two such different groups were abandoned in the Presto. Unmistakable motives based on Handel's "Messiah" were tossed about like a beach ball. Musicians from both quartets were united in sound and style by Mendelssohn's music.
This octet, written by the composer at the ripe age of 16, shows the impressions several Classical composers made on the young Mendelssohn. Perhaps an ironic parallel can be drawn between Mendelssohn's admiration for his predecessors and the Orion's feelings towards the Guarneri String Quartet.
No strangers to Ann Arbor, the Guarneri String Quartet made its 26th appearance under UMS auspices on Saturday. Conversely, the evening marked the Orion String Quartet's UMS debut.
The quartets' fantastic collaboration earned an immediate standing ovation.