{"id":17735,"date":"2025-11-03T13:20:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=17735"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:24:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:24:44","slug":"review-viano-quartet-boston-celebrity-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/review-viano-quartet-boston-celebrity-series\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: Viano Quartet displays mesmerizing artistry for the Celebrity Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Boston Classical Review<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jonathan Blumhofer<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the deal with Dmitri Shostakovich and E-flat major? Traditionally, that key is employed to represent grandeur, nobility, heroism\u2014think Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 3 or Strauss\u2019s Ein Heldenleben.<\/p>\n

Yet, in his use of that tonal area, Shostakovich was consistently happy to flip the anticipated script. Yes, his Cello Concerto No. 1 generally does what one expects. But the Third and Ninth Symphonies don\u2019t. Neither does the String Quartet No. 9.<\/p>\n

Completed in 1964, that five-movement effort is a model of tenacity and perseverance. Also, virtuosity and compositional rigor. But the music\u2019s heroic cast\u2014if that\u2019s what it is\u2014is painfully, even angrily earned. Its nobility is won, not inherited; its grandeur scarred, battle-tested.<\/p>\n

Or so it sounded on Sunday afternoon, when the Viano Quartet assayed the score as part of their Celebrity Series debut at Groton Hill Music\u2019s Meadow Hall. Winners of this year\u2019s prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Vianos are an electrifying collective.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To say they play well together is to state the obvious. What makes them captivating is subtler, harder to pin down. They check all the requisite technical boxes: practically perfect intonation, responsive phrasings, unified articulations, carefully calibrated dynamics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the tetrad\u2014violinists Lucy Wang and Hao Zhou, violist Aiden Kane, and cellist Tate Zawadiuk\u2014also understands how to translate technique into expression. There\u2019s an aura of rightness and purpose to their playing, of four individuals functioning as a single instrument, that, as somebody put it during intermission, is breathtaking. A<\/strong>t the very least, their musicianship served the afternoon\u2019s meaty program of music by Haydn, Mendelssohn, Webern, and Shostakovich exceedingly well.<\/p>\n

Not that any of Haydn\u2019s string quartets require much interpretive assistance: when done right, these works all but play themselves. Still, it was invigorating to hear the Viano\u2019s tonally fresh, rhythmically exact account of the Viennese master\u2019s D-major String Quartet Op. 76, no. 5.<\/p>\n

The music\u2019s contrasts and dialogues were all strongly etched, textures outstandingly clear. Inward episodes in the middle movements\u2014the soft exchanges between viola and cello beneath pulsing violins in the Largo and the Minuet\u2019s minore Trio, in particular\u2014spoke with bewitching intensity. The exuberant finale was a definition of wit and personality, violinist Wang dispatching the high-flying first violin runs with aplomb.<\/p>\n

She swapped chairs with Zhou for Mendelssohn\u2019s String Quartet No. 3 and the change in leadership immediately told. Sunday\u2019s wasn\u2019t exactly a demure account of this D-major effort\u2014the music is too extroverted to allow for such an outcome\u2014but it felt somewhat constrained. Certainly, it stands to reason, the soloistic first desk part won\u2019t get hurt if it\u2019s pushed a bit more aggressively.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Zhou had all his notes squarely in hand and he led his colleagues in notably songful renditions of the Quartet\u2019s densely active outer movements. For all the performance\u2019s snapping rhythms and dazzling contrapuntal displays, however, its beating heart emerged in the Andante. Here, the discreet interplay of lines\u2014sometimes coalescing, sometimes going their own ways\u2014offered the concert\u2019s finest illustration of the Viano\u2019s artistry, equal parts independence and unity, tied together by a common purpose.<\/p>\n

Those qualities also emerged in the group\u2019s reading of Anton Webern\u2019s Langsamer Satz. Lush, autumnal, and slightly discursive, this is unabashedly lovely music and the Vianos delivered it with just the right degree of urgency and direction.<\/p>\n

They brought those same attributes to Shostakovich\u2019s Ninth Quartet. Though its opening materials\u2014drones and an unpromising noodling figure\u2014don\u2019t suggest it, this is mightily involved music that, like Haydn, doesn\u2019t require heavy-handed intervention. Accordingly, the afternoon\u2019s interpretation mainly let the notes speak for themselves.<\/p>\n

Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Boston Classical Review By Jonathan Blumhofer What\u2019s the deal with Dmitri Shostakovich and E-flat major? Traditionally, that key is employed to represent grandeur, nobility, heroism\u2014think Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 3 or Strauss\u2019s Ein Heldenleben. Yet, in his use of that tonal area, Shostakovich was consistently happy to flip the anticipated script. Yes, his Cello Concerto … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3803,3670,3612,3867,7252],"class_list":["post-17735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-debut","tag-recital","tag-review","tag-string-quartet","tag-viano-quartet"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17736,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17735\/revisions\/17736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/11826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}