The New York Times calls the Parker Quartet, winner of Concert Artists Guild's 2005 Competition, "something extraordinary." The Boston Globe hails its "fiercely committed performances," and The Washington Post declares it "a quartet that deserves close attention."◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ 5/5
On Friday night, 2008.12.05, I attended a performance of string quartet music sponsored by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Two quartets performed as part of the SPCO's Young Artists concerts (the Ensō String Quartet and the Parker Quartet).Both of the quartets had mishaps. A music folder fell off the stand during the Ensō Quartet's performance, and the Parker Quartet's cellist had the misfortune of having a tuning peg slip loose early in the first movement of their piece. Neither quartet allowed the mishaps to diminish their performances. In fact, their grace to press ahead undeterred with good humor only served to underscore their ability.
The Parker Quartet's performance was my favorite of the evening. They played with wonderful precision and feeling. Go hear them if you ever have the chance. I hope my wife (who was not able to attend the December 5 concert) and I will be able to hear them again sometime. I'd love to have a recording of the PQ performing the piece they played that night.
The program said that they were playing Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.127. I was completely confused by this as the piece didn't sound like Beethoven at all. I loved the piece, but couldn't believe it was Beethoven.
The next day I visited the Parker Quartet's website and sent a note to compliment the group on their wonderful performance. I said that I had never heard that piece before and that it didn't sound like Beethoven to me. The cellist responded later that day saying that he had not noticed at the concert, but the program was wrong. They had, in fact, performed Dvorak's Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.51.That made great sense, and I was relieved to have that mystery resolved. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to question the accuracy of the program. End of story, right? Wrong.
A week later, my friend, Andrew, who had attended the performance with me, came over for a little Christmas visit. I had gone on so much that night about how I enjoyed the Parker Quartet's performance, and how surprising it was to hear something like that from Beethoven, that he ran out and purchased a recording of the Beethoven piece as a Christmas present. We had a big laugh when he heard the whole story and discovered that the mistake in the concert program had resulted in a mistake in his Christmas shopping.
We both agreed that the Parker Quartet and the SPCO were responsible for his mistake, and that they owed me a copy of the Dvorak quartet--or maybe free tickets to another performance. Sounds fair to me. :-)
