Noontime Concerts
Old St. Mary's Cathedral
Tues 8 Sep 2009, 12:30pm
A Concert for the Bells of St. Mary’s
Cypress String Quartet
Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in C Major, Op. 33, No. 3 "The Bird"
Samuel Barber: Adagio from String Quartet, Op. 11
Ludwig van Beethoven: Grosse Fuge, Op. 133
Due to a Muni bus breakdown, I arrived while the Cypress String Quartet was well into the Haydn. Despite this, a welcoming staff member urged me to come in, handed me a program, & told me to make myself comfortable. I very much enjoyed this program, which was quite substantial despite lasting under an hour. The Cypress String Quartet makes a warm, comforting sound, & I like the good communication & sense of agreement between the players. Their assured Grosse Fuge performance feels like the result of long familiarity & much interpretive discussion.
The audience was quiet & attentive, apart from a pair of older ladies in the pew in front of me, for whom the concert was apparently an interruption to their devotions. There was a long, appreciative silence after the Barber Adagio, as if it would be unseemly to start clapping. The sounds of cable cars & an old man playing the erhu occasionally filtered into the church. The whole experience had a sanctuary feel to it.
At the end, a lady announced that this program was dedicated to the construction crew currently working on the building renovations. She thanked them for suspending their work while the concert went on.
2 comments:
Glad you made it there. Sorry I missed seeing you. Feel free to compare impressions with my
Examiner.com review.
Ah, Mr. Smoliar, I wondered if you might have been in attendance! I crept in late & hunkered down in the back, hoping that no one would notice my gauche behavior. I did enjoy the playing & the strong programming. I agree that their Barber was no mere sentimental reading. After the concert, it took me a while to remind myself what the rest of my errands were that afternoon.
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