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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > October > 18 > Entry
Review: Aeolus Quartet
Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who, halfway through their time as UT Butler School of Music’s graduate quartet-in-residence, are charting an ascending course.
On Sunday night at Bates Recital Hall they played a concert of Beethoven’s first published string quartet, William Bolcom’s modern “Three Rags for String Quartet” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “String Quartet No.2 in A Minor.”
Beethoven’s “String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18” begins with a long allegro, in which Aeolus sounded very at ease, confident in their interpretation. They created weighted pauses — sustained silence, that made for some dramatic space between the music.
The second movement, which is inspired by the death scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” brought out a lovely cello tone and unified, manic dynamics that moved quickly from warm and calm, to furious bursts.
Aeolus are developing and expanding their style, and in the same movement a pause extended perhaps a touch too long, stretching drama into melodrama.
Bolcom’s three rags are super entertaining works that dance with Americana, classical and modern touches. Aeolus have a nice bead on how to play this music. ‘Graceful Ghost,’ an elegy for Bolcom’s father, is especially tender and nostalgic. This piece should be better known and the quartet embodied it beautifully.
The Mendelssohn gave Aeolus another chance to display a unity of technique and purpose, the violins and viola executing precise, exposed notes flawlessly. The work offers a few moments of whimsy that bring out the quartet’s evident sense of humor. After ending the first movement with a slightly uneven tone, they polished the work with sublime harmony, again showing a delicate, emotive touch.
Aeolus’ players are working towards graduate degrees or diplomas while studying with the Miro Quartet. In the meantime, this vibrant group shows great promise.
Before these musicians continue on their travels around the United States and the world, Austinites would do well to catch them at any of their — almost weekly — appearances. This performance was free and open to the public and attended mostly by music students.
To make local connection even easier, Aeolus have a nicely-curated blog and Facebook page that give a very human (and often funny) insight into their demanding performance and rehearsal schedule. One can read them cleverly respond to online spam or see a picture of their evening at Itzhak Perlmans’ home, where “Mr. P” took them on a voyage through the classical offerings of YouTube.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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