By snoadmin
A Northern wind swept through the Daniel Recital Hall on Tuesday night as the Borealis (Northern wind) string quartet gave an awe-inspiring, yet brief, performance.
The Borealis String Quartet has been touring the far East since 2006, and has established a reputation for their sold out shows in Taiwan, as well as invitations to teach master’s classes at the university level in Shanghai, China.
These fruitful Eastern tours about 5 years ago prompted the Chi- Mei Museum (a corporate collection of fine art in Tainan, Taiwan) to loan the quartet four beautiful Italian instruments from the 18th century. The museum loaned free instruments for “good musicians to spread good music to a global audience,” as stated on their website.
The virtuosity lept from the perfectly-tuned ancient instruments on stage and into the waiting ears of the audience. In a small recital hall like the Daniel, every grain of the wooden instruments of the violin, viola and cello could be heard and seen in glorious detail.
The BSQ, noted for their passionate and visual performance, swayed back and forth in unison as they struck the first slow and resonating chords of their first piece of music by Joseph Haydn.
The quartet in G Major by Haydn was moving, especially the Adagio which contained some very complex and challenging speed scales by 1st violinist Patricia Shih, whose wild flowing hair heavily contributed to the performance as Shih shook violently during crescendos and even braced her ankle around one of the legs of her chair. But when the piece was over, it was curious that the quartet walked off when there was another piece of music scheduled before their intermission.
The audience cheered them back onto the stage for an encore, and once they settled back into their chairs, the 90% geriatric audience went back to sleep, and it was immediately apparent why the quartet was eager to step off the stage, their audience was not exactly riveted.
The BSQ then went into a performance of an original score written for them by Chinese composer Joe-Lee, when last they were on the continent. The piece has been affectionately nicknamed by the BSQ, “Amour,” because it is about a girl who has a crush. The eastern influences rang through in Shih- Lin Chen’s staccato cello portions, and Shih’s again impeccable violin cried tears of longing for the young girls love.
The Music Guild brings classical music to students of UCLA, Long Beach State, and CSU Northridge, usually on three consecutive days, in that order. Before the end of the year, three more string quartets and a piano trio voce will perform at the Daniel Recital Hall, courtesy of the Music Guild.
It’s a wonderful service that the L.A.-based Music Guild offers us in bringing these amazing classical musicians to our campus with ticket prices like $5, but they will not want to play here anymore unless our young and wide-eyed generation spends more time in the front row, hearing that cat-gut sing.
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