The following review is reproduced here by Chamber Music Columbus as a public service with permission from the Columbus Dispatch. The views expressed by the reviewer do not necessarily reflect those of Chamber Music Columbus or its audience.

Ensemble breathtaking in works old and new

The 57th season of Chamber Music Columbus opened in brilliant fashion Saturday night at the Southern Theatre, showcasing the Pacifica Quartet in a program of early Mendelssohn and late Schubert, as well as the world premiere of a work by Jeffrey Mumford, with guest pianist Amy Dissanayake.

The theater should have been packed to the rafters. It wasn’t, but there couldn’t have been a more attentive and appreciative audience.

Soon after it formed 10 years ago, the Pacifica Quartet was receiving numerous awards, and understandably so. Violinists Simin Gantara and Sibbi Bernhardsson, violist Masumi Per Rostad and cellist Brandon Vamos are musicians of the first order. Their ensemble work is highly polished, as was demonstrated straight off with their performance of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 13.

One wondered once again at the genius of a German teenager as the performers brought his music to life. Nowhere was their playing more admirable than in the second movement, Adagio non lento, with its exciting fugue. Playing with passion and purity of tone, Gantara was spellbinding in her sometimes prominent role.

American composer Mumford, of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music faculty, writes music that often focuses on ever-changing natural light. (It is, however, more than A Little Light Music.) Chamber Music Columbus participated in the commission of toward the deepening stillness beyond visible light, and Mumford was present for its premiere. His one movement (Molto expressivo), atmospheric piano quintet stretches the listeners’ ears and imaginations. It surely challenged the Pacifica and Dissanayake, although you would never have known it.

An inspired reading of Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810, Death and the Maiden, completed the evening. Every aspect of the work received intelligent, sensitive attention, in particular the Andantes varia tions, the Scherzo’s tender trio, and the frenzied tarantellalike Presto finale.

For its encore, the Pacifica added icing to the cake, zipping off a stunningly original and rhythmic tango by Astor Piazzolla.

Let’s hear more from the Pacifica — and Piazzolla.