New Zealand String Quartet at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

The New Zealand String Quartet almost cajoled the audience with their opening piece, a poignant and bittersweet Andante con moto by Dvorak, although the rest of their Tuesday night concert demanded more of its listeners.

Leader Helene Pohl assured us that Ligeti's First Quartet would be "a wonderful and wild ride" and, after her crisp and informative introduction, with neat illustrations from the group, the work lived up to her advocacy.

There is a fascinating world in its 48 pages, looking to the sardonic Shostakovich and earthy Bartok as well as dealing out Ligeti's own idiosyncratic humour.

Nervy and robust by turns, the score demands a theatrical inevitability, which the players delivered. The audience was rapt until that final lush chord that would not have been amiss in a Bill Evans' solo.

Saetas, a new commission from Jack Body, shows the composer closing the lounge door on Carmen Dances and Fanfare for Bert and pursuing a new gravitas with a mix of Tchaikovsky, Wolf and the Spanish penitential songs which give the piece its name.

The composer's demands on his musicians are multifarious. They contributed footbeats in the Finale and added voices elsewhere. The opening scale (from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony) running up to a vocalised "Aiye" was a dramatic launch. After this first movement, Rolf Gjelsten turned in his cello for an accordion, which was a piquant partner to the string instruments.

The seriousness of this score will surprise some for whom Body has become a perpetrator of the diverting and exotic. The mix of Wolf and Tchaikovsky in the first movement, built around Douglas Beilman's gorgeous violin solo, was deeply affecting. So too was the emotionally charged third movement, Aye Triste Vida Corporal, transcribed from a 1950s Victoria de los Angeles recording.

After this full and rewarding first half, Schubert's C major Quintet, with Edith Salzmann providing second cello, was a little disappointing.

There was all the expected intelligence and ensemble here, as witnessed by the way in which the players sustained the taxing Adagio. However, too often tiredness crept in, only to be expected towards the end of a demanding tour, creating a rawness of tone, where Viennese sweetness was the order of the evening.