MUSIC REVIEW : Vogler Quartet in West Coast Debut

The youthful, highly touted Vogler Quartet, from what we used to call East Berlin, made an impressive, if problematic, West Coast debut Sunday for the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series.

The locale was the fiercely live salon of the 1910 Hendree House in Pasadena. Its sonic properties exposed no flaws in the execution of the players, whose clarity of tone and technical finish must be a recording producer’s dream.

The foursome--violinists Tim Vogler and Frank Reinecke, violist Stefan Fehlandt, cellist Stephan Forck--offered a strongly contrasted program: Haydn’s Quartet in G, Opus 77, No. 1, Webern’s Five Pieces, Opus 5, and the Verdi Quartet. Stylistic differences were not, however, sufficiently exploited by the players.

Theirs was dashingly incisive Haydn, with the cello’s bounding, bright-toned underpinning a particular pleasure in the opening movement. And the four players made the dramatic most of the trio section of the Minuet, perhaps the most Beethovenesque thing Haydn ever wrote.

One also had to admire the Voglers’ varied and sparing vibrato, employed as an expressive ornament rather than a meaningless omnipresence.

These ears did, however, miss the more humane implications of Haydn’s art: The easy gait of the Andante emerged more like a tense march, and while the rhythmic complexities of the presto finale were realized with breathtaking finesse, ensemble tone and attitude seemed more defiant than jovial, with the first violin more dominant than necessary, a circumstance that would prove vexing as well in the Verdi Quartet.

There is more interplay--and whimsy--in this late Haydn than one might have imagined from Sunday’s performance.

If the Verdi Quartet lacked amiability in this taut, sinewy reading--the vocal Verdi’s curvaceous presence was absent--one could still admire its sharp-edged brilliance.

Webern’s Five Pieces, with their dark murmurings, slashing outbursts and sul ponticello keenings are less ensemble works than displays of individuality, and here one could savor unqualifiedly the players’ undeniable skills.

As an ensemble, the Vogler Quartet may have a way to go, but it is a journey this listener wouldn’t mind taking with them.

The promise of a bright future is there.