Ancora String Quartet featuring Eleanor Bartsch.
The Ancora String Quartet closes its season this weekend with its Spring Recital, a rich program and a successful experiment with personnel change.
Although the group’s Madison performance opens May 23, I was fortunate enough to attend a preview performance. The program is a demanding one for the players: Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 1, Beethoven’s Quartet No. 11, the “Serioso” (Op. 95), and Brahms’s Quartet No. 3, Op. 67. Each work has its own features of style and coloration, and the ensemble does a good job displaying the contrasts between them.
With first violinist Leanne Kelso League in her second year of a leave of absence from the group, this program was the second time the quartet has featured a guest player in that position. Last fall, the guest was Wes Luke, who brought his own ideas and forceful personality. This time, the guest is Eleanor Bartsch, who is well known as both an orchestral and chamber player.
Bartsch does not impose her dominance on the ensemble, as first violinists often do. As it happens, the Ancora Quartet has never played any of the three works before, so there were no preconceived ideas to be confronted. As a result, the four players could approach them as equal partners.
Bartsch fits into the ensemble very neatly, with precise but balanced playing. There is more than just the first violinist to consider, however. The other three players dig into the music with gusto and strength. In the Shostakovich — and especially in the first two movements — the writing constantly break down the foursome into changing duets, showing off each pair of players to fine effect. The third movement of the Brahms quartet gives unusual and extended prominence to the viola, and Marika Fischer Hoyt seizes the opportunity to show off her instrument’s throaty tone.
This is a program that celebrates the adaptable collegiality of the Ancora String Quartet’s membership, and their enterprise in facing up to musical challenges and personnel shifts. It will be interesting to see how the group (re-)adjusts to the return of violinist League herself next season.
The quartet performs on May 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society.
