Dallas — The Muir String Quartet now has only half of the original members that took the chamber music world by a storm, winning the 1981 Naumburg Chamber Music Award and 1980 Evian International String Competitions. Violist Steven Ansell and cellist Michael Reynolds are now joined by violinists Peter Zazofsky and Lucia Lin. The precision and musical connection among the members that is the hallmark of the Muir was still front and center in their performance on Monday evening, presented by Dallas Chamber Music.
Southern Methodist University's Caruth Auditorium is a wonderful place to hear chamber music and their surprisingly forceful approach filled the hall with sound to the rafters. You expect this kind of muscular approach to Bartok's Quartet No. 3, but even Mozart's A major Quartet (K. 464) and Beethoven's Quartet in C Minor, Op. 59, No. 3 got an aggressive realization.
This is not to say that the performances of the Mozart and Beethoven lacked grace and charm where needed. Especially in the Mozart, most noticeably in the Menuetto and the gentle ending of the last movement, the quartet played with style and elegance. This was also evident in the Andante movement of the Beethoven, even though it started with a startling snap of a pizzicato in the cello. It just seemed that the loud parts were somewhat out of scale.
In general, the tempi were well thought out and fitting for each of the pieces. The finale of the Beethoven was the only exception. It was taken so fast that the cello had trouble getting the notes to speak. It was impressive that they could play it that rapidly and exhilarating to hear, but it was over the edge of fast and well into rushed territory.
Nothing was out of scale in the Bartok, however. The Muir quartet tore into Bartok's rough-and-tumble composition with all appropriate force. This is, perhaps, Bartok's most compact and tightly unified string quartet. Its four sections are played continuously and just a handful of motives supply all of the musical materials. Bartok gets a wide variety of sounds out of the instruments by using alternative playing techniques, such as hitting the strings with the wooden part of the bow (col legno) and getting a glassy sound by playing with the bow close to the bridge (sul ponticello). Glissandi (slides) and pizzicato effects abound.
The Muir played this buffet of sounds perfectly and incorporated them into the texture in such a unified way that they didn't stand out as something strange. This was a definitive reading.
One outstanding feature of the performance of all three pieces was the creative use of vibrato. In the hands of the Muir, vibrato was as integral to their performance as the louds, softs, accents and everything in between. This was especially effective in the opening of the Beethoven where a vibrato-less approach to the composer's weird and wonderful opening chords created an effect that wouldn't have been out of place in a contemporary composition. When they started the Allegro section of the first movement, it was as if clouds lifted to expose Beethoven at his brightest. The contrast was striking.
One other outstanding element of the Muir needs some mention and that is the amazing tone of violist Steven Ansell. Sounding more like a small cello than a large violin, his sound is at the core of the Muir. While a richer sound from first violinist Peter Zazofsky would help, the overall sonic color of the Muir changes constantly with the requirements of the music. This flexibility gives their interpretations a freshness and validity that stands out in an era of sound-alike quartets. 
