New Zealand String Quartet at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

Through no fault of the musicians, the New Zealand String Quartet's Czech concerts this week were very different from those promised.

With violist Gillian Ansell laid low by a recurrence of her RSI, there was a reshuffling of personnel and works (two Janacek string quartets slipped off the programme, along with the chance to hear Erwin Schulhoff's Five Pieces).

Instead, we had rather more than our fair share of Dvorak. Five works over two evenings amounted to something of a mini-festival, and the Czech composer's bright-eyed optimism and unfailing sunniness proved more than a little wearing.

Douglas Beilman and pianist Richard Mapp set off with Dvorak's G major Sonatina for violin and piano, a slight piece, cheery rather than challenging; and nor did the Piano Quartet Opus 87 delve very deeply beneath its surface, although there was pleasure from Helene Pohl's sonorous viola playing and Rolf Gjelsten's singing cello.

Indeed, these two offerings detracted from what should have been the highlight of this concert: the great String Quintet of Opus 77. While the previous items had been announced by Beilman and Gjelsten, it was the guest double bass player, Dale Gold, who took over these duties, with blokish informality.

The musicians, with Andrew Thomas on viola, dealt out the almost theatrical vitality needed, with some particularly keen ensemble playing in the trio of the second movement.

The second evening was more memorable, after we had survived Dvorak's rather ordinary Four Miniatures for String Trio. The chance to hear another composer's voice was most appreciated when Beilman and Gjelsten gave us Martinu's Duo No 2. There were no easy chord progressions or jolly peasant dances here.

Martinu creates miraculous textures from just two instruments in writing that balances dramatic shifts of mood with muscular lines - an almost bluesy Adagio is still with me as I write this review. A perfect antidote to the Bohemian bonhomie that had gone before.

There was more contrast still when Pohl and Tamas Vesmas offered Janacek's Violin Sonata. Written in the early months of World War I, this score is a cry from the heart, pitting intense anger and fear against the most fragile of poetry. The musicians made the most of it, from the terse dialogue of the first movement to the clashing spirits of the Finale.

The audience was swept away by the final offering, Dvorak's magnificent Piano Quintet Opus 81. This, too, has the ability to startle with the unexpected, especially in its vast first movement.

By the skeltering Furiant, one was fighting the temptation to get up and dance in the aisles, such was the exhilaration of the performance.

Vesmas, Pohl, Beilman and Gjelsten had been joined by Auckland violist Christine Bowie, whose pink gown was welcome among the all-surrounding black.