The Hong Kong String Quartet has changed only fractionally since last year, with a new viola player from Israel. But their seriousness in music, skill as individual players and determination to get through the most challenging music has remained admirable.
Certainly the three works they chose for their latest concert would challenge more experienced groups. Taking the most beguiling Mendelssohn, the most intensely cryptic Shostakovich and Beethoven at his most ribald would tax any group.
This ensemble proved well-suited to most of the tasks. Not, especially, to the Mendelssohn, which started at a breakneck pace and never quite achieved the right balance after that.
Even with that command of molto allegro vivace, this group simply tore into the music, its high power dissipated into a rather hectic quality. By the time of that lovely minuet and andante, they had regained some of their poise. But this was a work where intonation was clumsy and individual work a bit on the haphazard side.
The Shostakovich 8th Quartet, with its myriad quotations from the composer, is, at best, the work of a man who feels himself the same kind of victim as those to whom he dedicated the work. Few can achieve this sense of the forlorn, but the Hong Kong String Quartet came close. The opening was stark and sombre. The following 'war' movement was played at a merciless speed, but the only casualties were a few fuzzed triplets.
The final three continuous movements were played with all the pathos they deserve. Thank heavens this group is not homogenised, and their skills made the solos - especially the cello solo of the finale - all the more tender.