KEY POINTS:
The first concert of the New Zealand String Quartet's French Connections series opened with an old friend, the Ravel Quartet. From the start, the refinement and delicacy of the players' palette brought a special hush over the audience.
There was the same magic dispensed in the middle section of the second movement as well as in the ensuing Tres lent, led by Gillian Ansell's languorous viola.
The musicians' mastery of the great arch of Dutilleux's Ainsi la Nuit was admirable. Cellist Rolf Gjelsten had alerted us that we were in for some "non-gratuitous colours" and, in mesmerising accord like some giant string behemoth, they illuminated the complex procession of movements.
Michael Houstoun joined them for Faure's First Piano Quartet. Here the usual spoken introductions were dispensed with; it was straight into the pastel Brahms of Faure's Allegro.
High spirits were to the fore in the jig-like curlicues of the Scherzo, while the Adagio was an intense soulful meditation.
Sunday afternoon's concert at St Matthew-in-the-City had the potential to be every bit as good, although ecclesiastical acoustics conspired to muffle what was some exceptionally fine music-making.
Even spoken introductions suffered as players stepped down into the aisle to communicate more directly.
Takemitsu's A Way A Lone was launched by Ansell who, in a nice touch that reminded one of various James Joyce works set by Luciano Berio, read out an extract from Finnegan's Wake that had given Takemitsu his title.
A Way A Lone was an inspired choice with lush, complex sonorities that seemed to stretch beyond Debussy and Ravel back into the autumnal world of Late Romanticism.
Gjelsten then warned us of the switch from sensuous to prickly for Ravel's 1922 Sonata for Violin and Cello.
Violinist Helene Pohl and Gjelsten are a joy to watch, such is their body language, with the fascinating give-and-take of bows and arms. They certainly offered the perfect complement to Ravel's lean and sometimes acerbic music.
Too often, alas, high-vaulted ceilings and hard surfaces made the music a jumble of dissonance that would have made the fastidious composer wince.
It was the same with Debussy's Quartet, another of the group's "old friends". When harmonic rhythm was leisurely, the acoustics flattered; when chords moved too swiftly, what should have been brooding, simply blurred.
Despite this, the precise articulation of the Assez vif was a tribute to the group's utter professionalism while the muted Andantino, led by Douglas Beilman, revealed how the passage of time has indeed lent a special maturity to this interpretation.
