The New Zealand String Quartet at the Town Hall Concert Chamber

By WILLIAM DART

There were a few hurdles to overcome at the New Zealand String Quartet's 4 Strings & Piano concerts. Let's forgive the group's new designer uniforms with their silly attempts at chic greatcoats combined with over-generous lashings of purple; let's even overlook cellist Rolf Gjelsten's interminable, rambling introduction to the first programme.

But some transgressions can't be let off so lightly. Wellington has tried to help us Aucklanders before with musical appreciation aids - remember the NZSO's giant video screen of a few years back? The NZSQ should realise that we don't need ersatz projections behind the players to help us along the musical highway. Both the colours and the images provoked more questions than they answered - why did the sky turn red for Brahms? Why ecclesiastical architecture for the Mendelssohn F minor?

That being said, there was some fine playing over these two evenings. Of the two Mendelssohn Quartets, the E minor of Op 44 no 2 was more smoothly delivered, with the neat dovetailings of its first movement and a lighter-than-air Scherzo, although the later F minor of Op 80 made more of an individual stand. It was not without its roughnesses - Helene Pohl's octaves in particular being a cause for concern - but how good to see Mendelssohn rescued from being typecast as Prophet of the Bland, with thunderstorms of sforzandi.

Schumann's F major Quartet did not seem to be quite under the players' fingers, certainly in the final movement, although one had to admire the musicians' control and ensemble in the Andante. This is, in many ways, the most demanding section, with Schumann calling for an almost orchestral richness of sound.

The composer was more consistently served in his Piano Quartet, with Diedre Irons joining the strings. Here there was happier intonation and the musicians caught the emotional volatility of the man, with elusive rhythm play and a slow movement that trembled teasingly on the brink of sentimentality.

While Brahms' A minor String Quartet came across as another interpretation in progress, despite some shapely work in the Quasi Menuetto third movement, the same composer's G minor Quartet was superb.

The opening Allegro took its own good time to stress its substance, while the deliriously fast Rondo alla Zingarese would have had Brahms' beard flailing in the wind. Between these extremes, the Andante con moto revealed the serenity and emotional richness that is the purest essence of this composer's art.