Perhaps some were thinking of their own daughters, pre-teen rebellion, and others of their granddaughters, out of touch in distant states.

Doubtless most had happier ideas in mind, though one thing was clear: The appearance Saturday of Jackie Evancho on the final night of this year’s Festival of the Arts Boca turned an audience of concertgoers into proud, teary parents.

The 10-year-old poperatic sensation from America’s Got Talent waved excitedly at the crowd with both hands, and they leaned closer to the stage and waved right back. She beamed after finishing her arias, squeezing her arms close to her ivory dress in best aw-shucks style, and the audience jumped to its feet and roared its approval.

It was an unusual, emotional night at Mizner Park, and one that offered a healthy display of young operatic talent outside the celebrity wattage of the petite, golden-haired Pittsburgh tween. Evancho was the special attraction on a concert that also featured four rising singers who took the big crowd through some of the most familiar selections from the operatic repertoire, and did so impressively.

The Boca Raton Symphonia, which appeared in the earliest iterations of this five-year-old festival, was the house band for the evening (called A Night at the Opera) under the able direction of Constantine Kitsopoulos. The five singers alternated appearances in Whitman’s-sampler style, separated by three overtures from Italian opera and the entr’acte from Act IV of Bizet’s Carmen.

Most of the music was amplified, which gave it a slightly unrepresentative sound, but there was enough good vocalism there to be encouraged about the future of opera in North America.

All four of the adult singers gave one or more excellent performances, which in that sense made them relatively equal. Each of these voices was large and powerful, perhaps none more so than the Canadian tenor John Tessier.

Tessier’s voice is one of those lyric tenors with a cutting, thrilling vocal edge that makes it stand out immediately on stage. His Ah, mes amis, quel jour de fête, from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, showed a voice that had no difficulty at all hitting the aria’s legendary nine high C’s, even to the point that he was able to sing the first eight at mezzo-forte, with a sense of plenty of muscle to spare.

His second appearance, also in music by Donizetti – Una furtiva lagrima, from L’Elisir d’Amore – demonstrated that he can sing with full-blooded warmth as well, spinning out rich lines of song with apparent ease and textual sensitivity. The audience loved this performance, as they did Tessier’s duet with baritone Michael Todd Simpson, in which the two men’s voices blended beautifully for Au fond du temple saint, from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers.

Simpson was an audience favorite, first for his funny, but not overdone, reading of the Largo al factotum from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and even more for his swaggering, aggressive take on the Toreador Song from Carmen. Simpson has a dark, full voice with a strong lower register, often a point of treachery in the verse for the Toreador Song, but not here: all the notes spoke solidly, and well.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway also scored with the Habanera from Carmen, for which her large voice was well-suited; she didn’t play much with the notes, as mezzos often do in this aria, but it was every bit as effective. Her work in Mozart was also quite fine, with a strong Non so piu cosa son from Le Nozze di Figaro early on, and then best of all, a charming duet with Simpson in La ci darem la mano, from Don Giovanni.

Opera producers often like a lighter voice type for Zerlina than Holloway’s, but the benefit of using a fuller voice like hers is the element of mature seduction that she can get across, rather than the sound of an innocent abroad in a dangerous new land.

Katie Van Kooten, an American soprano who has studied and worked in London, is a singer with a huge, commanding voice who would make an excellent Musetta for La Bohème. As it happens, she sang Puccini: Magda’s song (Chi il bel sogno di Doretta) from La Rondine, an increasingly popular selection as this opera continues to make inroads into the repertory. She almost oversang the first high notes, but in sum this was a fine, intense performance.

Her second appearance was even finer, with a beautiful, high-floating tour of Song to the Moon, from Dvorak’s Rusalka. Van Kooten has plush, orchestra-swamping vocal power to spare, a quality that suggests that she could handle the most demanding roles in the repertoire.

For its part, the Boca Symphonia did its job admirably and well, accompanying capably and giving crisp performances of the overtures to Verdi’s Nabucco and Rossini’s Barber of Seville and L’Italiana in Algeri (this last a wise mood-changing switch from the originally scheduled Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana). They also proved suitably emotive in the Intermezzo from Puccini’s early Manon Lescaut, with good work from cellist Christopher Glansdorp, violist Scott O’Donnell and violinist Misha Vitenson.

Then there was Evancho herself, the headliner of the night. She sang five pieces, part pop, part classical, including the Puccini aria – O mio babbino caro, from the one-act Gianni Schicchi – that made her name on America’s Got Talent. In its pre-mature stage, it is a pretty voice with a haunting alto quality that makes it sound like the property of someone much older, as well as something otherworldly.

Evancho does not have a lot of breath control, since her adult lungs haven’t arrived, and she has to gulp air repeatedly to sing the longer lines that will come easily to her a few years from now. But she clearly has a good ear, and even when she ran into some vocal trouble, she managed to stay on pitch and keep the basic purity of her tone production intact.

All five of her songs were arranged by pop master David Foster, and for most of them an added piano part, heavily miked, was prominent. She looked always to Kitsopoulos for her cues, followed them strictly, and then delivered, with the slightly awkward hand and arm movements that endear her to listeners, and which turned into forceful pulls to her sides at moments of high drama.

She was most effective in the two lighter selections: Lovers, from Shigeru Umebayashi’s score for Zhang Yimou’s 2004 costume actioner House of Flying Daggers, and All I Ask of You, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Phantom of the Opera. In both, her dark lower register added real loveliness to music of derivative sweetness, and she sang them persuasively.

Her Ombra mai fu, from Handel’s opera Serse, showed that she is able to sing with evenness across the course of a song, and her terminal high note (an F, I think) was full and steady. O mio babbino caro, as expected, drew huge applause, and she sang this arrangement (down a whole step from the original) reasonably well.

Evancho reappeared at the close of the show for Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, from Turandot, normally an aria for a tenor. This is not a particularly good choice for this girl’s voice, and she struggled through it, rebounding in true trouper style with an added three-note flourish for the final chords.

Jackie Evancho is a most fortunate person, having been born with talent into a musical family that has shrewdly managed her and carefully placed her career in expert hands like those of Foster. She has said one of her voice teachers expects she’ll be able to keep her higher notes as she grows older, and build strength in her lower notes.

I don’t see any reason to doubt that, nor do I see any reason to deny that she has real ability. It will be interesting to see what happens to her as she moves from angelic adorability into a much more uncertain future, but I also expect we’ll find out, and that we’ll be hearing from Jackie Evancho for some time to come.

The Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero has carved out a useful niche for herself as a musician who recalls an earlier tradition of performers who improvised in concert.

Her recital Thursday night during the fifth Festival of the Arts Boca ended with four of her improvisations, but it was the rest of her program that provided the highest interest from a purely musical point of view.

Most of Montero’s recital at the Cultural Arts Center in Mizner Park contained music of Latin America, including a major sonata by Alberto Ginastera. She opened the evening, however, with two of the four Ballades of Frederic Chopin.

In both of the Ballades – No. 1 in G minor (Op. 23) and No. 4 in F minor (Op. 52) – Montero established herself as a pianist of the poetic persuasion. Tempos were loose, melodies were front and center, and she made the most of unexpected moments such as the sudden series of soft C-major chords before the coda in the Fourth Ballade, or the descending octaves in the first agitato section of the First Ballade, which she held on to as long as feasible before cranking up the G minor motor.

She demonstrated also a large and impressive, if not immaculate, technique, but she was able to bring off the showier moments of both pieces in generally admirable fashion. But while her playing of the First Ballade made a strong impact, the climactic A major repeat of the second theme was pounded rather than played with majesty, and the performance as a whole was missing a level of polish and command that would have made the contrasting sections stand out more and the piece overall communicate more effectively.

Montero was better in the Fourth Ballade, where the pages of angry triplets in the last pages were nice and clean, and the opening bars were hushed and almost motionless, for a very pretty effect. Best of all was the short quasi-canon passage before the recap, for which the tempo slowed and each hand played its lines with Bachian purity, creating a moody, ruminative feel that set up the return of the initial music beautifully.

A set of four pieces by the Cuban pianist-composer Ernesto Lecuona came next. Lecuona’s work is greatly admired in some circles, but this is music of scant merit, in which commonplace tunes are presented through a scrim of tattered Liszt. Still, Montero played all four – Malagueña, La Cumparsa, Cordoba, and Gitanerias – with style and panache, and a heightened sense of rhythm and color. The high point came in the second strain of Cordoba, which Montero performed with surpassing delicacy and gentleness.

The program listed the Danzas Criollas of Ginastera next, but Montero skipped it, and my notes indicate she next played Brejeiro, a well-known tango by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth. This got a sunny, straightforward reading, and the first half closed with Joropo, by the Venezuelan composer Moisés Moleiro (1904-1979).

Based on a folk dance in which colorful skirts play an important role (as Montero explained in remarks to the half-full house), this is an exciting, well-written piece with a vivid sense of movement and color, and Montero gave it plenty of fire.

The sole programmed work on the second half was the Sonata No. 1 of Ginastera, which Montero called “a titanic work” that’s now getting its due. She played it very well, and with relative restraint considering how often Ginastera’s compositional aesthetic gives performers the green light to play with as much force and volume as possible.

In the finale, for example, the rapidly shifting rhythm was clearly and precisely marked, not hammered, and that helped the clustered chords that appear later in the movement sound logical rather than yet another element of aggressive tone-painting. The first movement, too, had this same quality of tensile clarity, while let the chief falling-scale theme speak with different colors each time it appeared.

The slow third movement expressed desolation, just as Montero promised it would, and her deliberate, quiet reading of this music gave the audience a glimpse into another part of Montero’s art.

Montero takes audience suggestions for themes to improvise upon, and insists that the themes be familiar to all the listeners. The crowd was very enthusiastic, and divided between “Latins and non-Latins,” as Montero said, which at one point led her to veto two tunes suggested by the Latin partisans, including Caballo Viejo, on grounds of general unfamiliarity.

The first theme, suggested by festival founder Charlie Siemon, was Harold Arlen’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, for which Montero used the first eight bars, and gave it a J.S. Bach-Ferruccio Busoni treatment, its snappy ornamentations augmented by big Romantic octaves in the bass.

Billy Joel’s Piano Man came next, first played like a Chopin waltz, then transformed into the minor for a Lecuona-like habanera. Another habanera, the one by Sebastián Iradier that Georges Bizet appropriated for Carmen, followed, and this also received a Chopinesque setting, with some Liszt added to the mix.

The final theme was Consuelito Velazquez’s 1940s standard Bésame Mucho, and this returned Montero to Bach-Busoni territory, ending in a similar fashion to the Arlen song, with a proud tower of descending motifs built on a triumphant tonic major-key triad at the close.

The musical vocabulary that Montero is able to access at a moment’s notice is impressive, and there’s no gainsaying her overall level of ease and comfort at the keyboard. But it’s worth noting that these improvisations are basically clever evocations of well-known styles in which any tune at all could be dropped and still work.

That’s not to say it’s not entertaining, and it’s a much-needed revival of a 19^th-century fashion of concertizing that put a greater premium on audience connection and performer spontaneity. I just wonder what would happen if Montero improvised at a more demanding level: Could she make something as bleak as the third movement of the Ginastera sonata out of Piano Man if she took the notes and let them wander where they will?

Questions of entertainment, of course, are paramount, but I think Montero could do it. The difficulty for her is that what she does now comes so easily to her that she may shrink from stretching herself in the belief that her audience won’t follow her. But we will, and it’d be exciting to hear her try.

The Festival of the Arts Boca continues tonight with a screening of The Wizard of Oz, with live accompaniment from the Boca Raton Symphonia conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos. The movie begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater in Mizner Park, Boca Raton. For more information, call 866-571-2787.

This refined, delicate, good-looking production of Mozart’s Così fan Tutte, with swaths of brilliantly lit open spaces, marble statues and lovely costumes, harks back to productions at the Salzburg Festival in 1982 -- even down to the same sunshade beach umbrella.

There’s nothing wrong with that: Imitation is the finest form of flattery, after all. It shows the careful planning that went into this staging, because this opera, a bit of puffery really, demands focus on the music. And what brilliant tunes Mozart writes for Lorenzo Da Ponte’s crazy libretto about faithfulness, trust and constancy, especially in this opera, where one man bets his two young friends their sweethearts will not be true to them.

Così fan Tutte came from nowhere. There’s not a line of scholarship to suggest it was commissioned. My guess is that having worked together on The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, Mozart and Da Ponte decided to have some fun and write about what they knew best: romantic adventures. Mozart’s many love affairs with his lead sopranos are legion. And Lorenzo Da Ponte had been kicked out of Rome and Venice for his womanizing before arriving in Vienna.

It’s not that he was out of ideas. He wrote 50 libretti in his 90-year span. Also, I bet they split the profits. Mozart, hard up as usual, asked his friend Michael Puchberg for a loan in December 1789 on certain repayment from the management of the producing theatre the following January.

“Come to the theatre on 20 January at 10 a.m.,” he wrote Puchberg, “and only you and Joseph Haydn will be allowed to see a rehearsal of my opera.” This is all that’s known of the origins of Così fan Tutte.

I saw Palm Beach Opera’s production of the opera Saturday. Stage Director Stephen Lawless’ handling of the cast in movement and set situations is almost flawless, but there’s too much plopping down, using steps for seats. Give them benches, please!

Also missing was the huge Mesmer magnet Despina uses to revive the “sick” men. Instead, a Benjamin Franklin kite charged with electricity in a storm, replaces the magnet. It fits the time frame of this opera perfectly.

Conductor Gianluca Martinenghi conducted beautifully, letting the orchestra accompany the singers in softer tones than is usual, which highlighted their singing. The refinement began with Martinenghi’s subtle baton in a remarkably exquisite reading of the overture.

Caitlin Lynch as Fiordiligi was superb, especially her Come scoglio in Act I. Her acting and singing mark her as a young soprano on the cusp of a great opera career. Dorabella, sung by Patricia Risley, has a distinct mezzo soprano voice that blended well with Lynch’s, her every acting gesture just right, never overdone.

Abigail Nims, a lovely mezzo, had little to do in this “refined” production. I’ve seen productions of Così where this small role steals the show in vulgar ways. Not so here.

Baritone Andrew Schroeder gave a magnificent account of his role as Guglielmo. He has a finely tuned instrument that flows along like golden honey. And Joel Pietro, the lovesick tenor Ferrando, gave a very fine reading of Un’aura amorosa, the Mozart tune that is most remembered for its phrasing and absolute beauty.

The Don Alfonso of bass Matteo Peirone moved about the stage well but was vocally tired that night; he sings in all performances.

In the Vienna of 1790, this opera had one month’s run in January and a three-month summer run, so if the two authors got their fair share of the receipts, they did well.

Rex Hearn founded the Berkshire Opera Company in Massachusetts. He has reviewed opera in South Florida since 1995.

The Palm Beach Opera is closing its three-year survey of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas with a somewhat minimalist but well-staged and ably sung production of Così fan Tutte.

Friday night found a cast of young, handsome singers working inside a Stephen Lawless reading of the opera that was easy to understand, almost plausible, and full of smart, interesting stage business that added depth to the action without overwhelming it or detracting from the elegance of the late-Mozart score.

If there wasn’t much exceptional singing Friday night, there nevertheless was plenty of good vocal work from each of the characters, particularly in the second act, which was noticeably more confident and lively than the first.

The Slovenian soprano Sabina Cvilak, making a return appearance to the house after her turn as Desdemona last season in Verdi’s Otello, made a good Fiordiligi, especially in her moments of peak emotional crisis in the second act. She has a strong, round voice with a nice darkness in the lower registers, and a highly polished finish throughout its compass.

Her work in the big second-act aria Per pietà ben mio was very impressive, with clean shifts in the jumps from top to bottom, and a persuasive interpretive sense of psychological turmoil. Her voice blended beautifully with that of her operatic sister, Lithuanian mezzo Jurgita Adamonyte (beginning with the Soave sia il vento in Act I), and she managed to make the most of a rather cool stage temperature.

Adamonyte, as Dorabella, was considerably warmer, in part because the character calls for it, but she also is an appealing actress who made her second-act duet with Guglielmo (Il core vi dono) delightful to watch. Like Cvilak she has a strong, well-rounded voice, and one with a little more presence.

Her E amore un ladroncello was charmingly sung, and her flirty, happy interpretation of it an excellent match for Dorabella, who too often is asked to present this aria through a sadder-but-wiser scrim of hard-won knowledge.

The men were equally solid. Tenor Norman Shankle, last season’s Cassio in Otello, has a lightly colored but forceful and flexible voice that’s ideal for Mozart. The added heat he brought to his singing in the crucial duet with Fiordiligi added a fresh, nervous color to the voice that was quite attractive.

Baritone David Adam Moore was a fine Guglielmo whose voice also has the right kind of weight and suppleness for Mozart. His acting was good, both solo and with Shankle, and his Donne mie, la fate a tanti had a definitive quality to it that made it memorable.

As Don Alfonso, the Italian bass Matteo Peirone was absolutely on point. He had just the right kind of smirky knowingness as the moral philosopher who sets this comedy in motion, and the conversational style of his firm, warm voice embodied the character every bit as much as his acting.

The role of Despina is a gift for a comic singer, and mezzo Abigail Nims was marvelous at it. She has a big voice with a sharp, cutting sound when she needs it, and she got the second act off to a wonderful start with her Una donna a quindici anni. The quality of her singing was apparent early in the first act, and not just with In uomini, in soldati: In the sextet before Fiordiligi’s Come scoglio, you could hear Nims tossing off those fast leaps at Io non so, se son Vallachi with pinpoint accuracy.

It’s worth pointing out here that this company has benefited in its last couple productions from the casting choices made by David Blackburn, the director of artistic operations. This Così cast was shrewdly assembled using voices of different colors, but with a broad unity of weight and agility; Nims’s voice, which had the tightest focus, added the perfect standout spice to the mix.

Italian conductor Gianluca Martinenghi led the fine Palm Beach Opera Orchestra very carefully, and in the first act kept the volume level way down beneath his singers. It struck me as something too cautious, with the result that some of Mozart’s wit and vigor were drained out of the music. One missed the usual fire of principal conductor Bruno Aprea, though Martinenghi did an expert job of keeping things moving, and the orchestra played quite well for him.

Stage director Lawless, a veteran of the Glyndebourne touring company, working with a simple, almost severe set from Peter Dean Beck and scenery from the Altanta Opera, fills the space with intelligent choices. When Dorabella and Despina hear out Fiordiligi’s anguish in Act II, they do so lying on a bed next to each other, heads to the audience and feet toward on the headboard, as Fiordiligi stalks the room. It adds a whimsical Tiger Beat feel to the scene that beautifully sums up the two points of view on the fidelity issue, and makes the situation believable for a modern audience.

Other clever bits include Benjamin Franklin’s key-and-kite lightning deliverer as a substitute for Dr. Mesmer’s magnet, and a continuing bit with two colored sashes worn by the women, which for Fiordiligi becomes something of a set of worry beads, and for Dorabella becomes an object of playful seduction in her duet with Guglielmo, which Friday night actually raised some sexual heat.

Greg Ritchey’s chorus was solid and effective, and Kathy Waszkelewicz’s costumes were excellent – elegant and lovely at all times for the women (even their undergarments at the opening of Act II), and getups for the “Albanians” that almost made them convincing.

Così fan Tutte will be performed at 7:30 p.m. today at the Kravis Center, with Caitlyn Lynch as Fiordiligi, Patricia Risley as Dorabella, Andrew Schroeder as Guglielmo and Joel Prieto as Ferrando. Friday night’s cast will return at 2 p.m. Sunday, and tonight’s cast will return at 2 p.m. Monday. Tickets start at $23. Call 833-7888 or visit www.pbopera.org, or call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.

Peijun Xu (Feb. 10, Steinway Gallery, Boca Raton)

If the concertgoing world doesn’t fully appreciate the variety that a viola can bring to a recital, that won’t be the fault of Peijun Xu.

The Shanghai-born musician performed two local recitals this week for the Kronberg Academy, an organization based in that German town near Frankfurt (the city that Xu now calls home) that helps accomplished violinists, violists and cellists build viable concert careers. The Kronberg has been raising money in Palm Beach County for its programs since August 2009.

Xu played recitals at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Persson Hall on Wednesday night, and at the Boca Steinway Gallery on Thursday night. Her recital at the gallery was sparsely attended, but she and her accompanist, Spanish pianist José Menor, stinted not a bit, and the result was a rewarding evening of fine music, beautifully played.

The viola’s special sound can be tricky to realize, but Xu has a wide variety of qualities that she brings to the instrument, from a chocolaty darkness in the lowest registers to a breathy lightness that has a plusher, fatter sound than the same kind of passage on the violin. A good example of this came in the second work on her program, the Viola da Gamba Sonata No. 3 (in G minor, BWV 1029) of J.S. Bach. In the first two movements, her tone was focused and pure, and in the third the repeated notes of the main theme had a strong sense of lift that moved the music along smartly.

She has a good sense of Baroque style, and she and Menor worked very well together, smiling at each other throughout, and finishing phrases such as the trill suffixes in the second movement of the Bach with precision togetherness.

The Brahms Viola Sonata No. 2 (in E-flat, Op. 120, No. 2), originally for clarinet, also is a staple for violists, and indeed the music works well for the instrument. Here, too, Xu’s sound had purity and nobility from the first bars, and she handled the more virtuosic elements of Brahms’ late writing deftly. She demonstrated as well a welcome intensity in the minor-key sweep of the second movement, and the 32^nd-note variation in the third movement had a lovely delicacy.

The second half of the recital showed more of the Romantic side of Xu’s art, beginning with the two Chansons (Op. 15) of Edward Elgar. For both of these pieces, Xu offered a bigger, more expansive sound, as if she were more relaxed, and the Chanson de Nuit, which she played second, benefited much from her digging more deeply into the strings. Xu is a highly physical player as well, swaying and leaning as she performs, often with her eyes closed tightly.

Her immersion in the music continued with a Chopin set: the posthumous C-sharp minor Nocturne (arranged by Yehudi Menuhin and Xu herself), and the celebrated E-flat Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2, in an arrangement by Pablo de Sarasate. The tiny audience adored these intense readings, especially the E-flat, which could have used a bit more breadth in the cadenza before going to the brief coda.

The Paganini La Campanella (the Rondo movement from his Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 7) that followed came off with great gusto and admirable accuracy, and demonstrated Xu’s considerable finger technique as well as the agility of her bow arm. The recital closed with a William Primrose arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango, which she played with power and verve, swinging into the music with obvious enjoyment.

For an encore, Xu paid homage to her homeland with Fisherman’s Serenade, a Romantic-style arrangement by Li Guoquan of a Chinese folksong, which she played prettily.

After the concert, Xu talked about her concert career, which has included much playing of the viola concertos of Walton, Hindemith and Penderecki. Just 25, she has a fine career as a violist ahead of her, with the proviso that repertory for this beautiful instrument is always something of a challenge.

And so, this call to composers: Write some music for Peijun Xu. You won’t be sorry. – Greg Stepanich

Next up in the Kronberg Academy recital series is the Japanese cellist Dai Miyata, whom Menor also will accompany. Miyata’s recital is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 8, at the Boca Steinway Gallery. Call 283-1815 for more information, or visit www.usfriendskronbergacademy.org.

***

Amernet String Quartet (Feb. 2, Stage West, Duncan Theatre, Lake Worth)

At the rear of the Duncan Theatre, there’s a gem of a space called Stage West, and on Feb. 2, that’s where the exceptional Amernet String Quartet performed works from the last three centuries to a full house.

First came the Haydn Quartet No. 67 (in F, Op. 77, No. 2), written in 1799. Here was
the ultimate in a form thought to have been invented by Papa Haydn and improved upon by others, notably Mozart, who dedicated six such works to the master.

The Haydn quartet, which was the last one he completed, opens with a strong cello voice in the first movement, beautifully played here by Jason Calloway. The Menuetto of the second movement opens with a throbbing , surging melody that is passed around each instrument. Then cello and viola engage in a duet with a very catchy tune, picked up by the first and second violins, who finish it.

An amusing two-note harmony, repeated once, ends the movement. The blend and balance of the third movement, marked Andante, was superb, and all four players gave of their best as they moved into the Finale with a forceful attack. The melody skipped along endlessly, closing with an unexpected suddenness. A fine performance, and one that left the audience in a good frame of mind.
The next piece on the program was six short adaptations of preludes from Shostakovich’s Op. 34 set for piano. These were transcribed by Yuri Vitenson, father to the Amernet’s principal violinist, Misha Vitenson, at the urging of his mother. Yuri Vitenson thought long and hard about adapting these piano works and decided that a string quartet would suit best. All are in the original key, and Misha Vitenson led his three colleagues with dynamism and incredibly strong expressive playing.

For me, it was over too quickly, and I wonder whether the elder Vitenson would consider doing all the other Shostakovich preludes in the set. They have great drama, and they are representative of many trends in 20^th-century music.

The lone String Quartet of Claude Debussy, written in 1893, opened up the floodgates for the next 100 years in terms of a new approach in composing for the string quartet, primarily through exoticism. “We get to pull our instruments apart in this,” Callaway told the audience with a grin.

The first movement opens with what sounds like an express train racing down the rails. It builds and builds until it stops, and one feels as if one has fallen off a cliff. Ending with rising crescendos, the music fades to nothingness. Plucked strings begin the second movement with tuneful melodies rising and falling until they return to plucked strings of the opening.

A soft, elegiac mood starts the third movement, which was led by violist Michael Klotz, who played exquisitely, producing some lovely romantic sounds, warm with expressiveness. At the last, the express train returns with edge-of-the-seat sounds reminiscent of music in a film noir. A real sense of urgency distinguishes itself in this movement, which has a triumphant ending. Rapturous applause greeted the magnificence of the Amernet’s interpretation, and deservedly so.

I have heard many string quartet groups over the years, few as business-like or intense as these four talented musicians. No histrionics attend their playing like some I’ve encountered. Their sound has a strength and vibrancy unique to them, and it was a rewarding experience to see and hear such fine artists at the top of their game. – Rex Hearn

***

Fry Street Quartet (Jan. 30, Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach)

Performing one of the last extraordinary string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven is always a special event, but it doesn’t hurt to explain to an audience just why that is.

Rebecca McFaul, the second violinist of the Fry Street Quartet, took her audience at the Four Arts on Jan. 30 carefully through the seven movements of the C-sharp minor quartet (Op. 131), demonstrating along with her colleagues various sections of the work and generally demystifying it. It was carefully done, and no doubt much appreciated, though the audience was already on the quartet’s side before it began to play.

The Fry Street is a fine professional quartet, based now at Utah State University, and also a veteran of the Beethoven cycle, and the foursome offered selections from both ends of it at the concert. Opening the afternoon was the very first quartet (in F, Op. 18. No. 1), and the Fry Street delivered a masterful performance of this early work.

The first movement had plenty of tightly coiled energy while being light on its feet; Beethoven’s motifs climbed and yearned like they should, but without overdoing it. First violinist William Fedkenheuer played with intensity and feeling in the long-breathed second movement, but the deliberate ritards at the ends of his solo figurations before leading back into the tuttis were somewhat on the stagey side.

The trio of the third movement had a good sense of shock and vigor, and the easy briskness of the finale was a good compensation for slight ensemble miscues here and there in the three-note figure that answers the triplet runs in the main theme. All in all, a strong performance, and one with an appropriate early-wine style.

Samuel Barber’s only String Quartet (in B minor, Op. 11) is too rarely heard in its original form, though the slow movement is known around the world as the Adagio for Strings. The Fry Street’s reading of the Barber was much like its early Beethoven in that it was clean, thoroughly prepared, and well-executed.

The first and third movements were suitably peppery, and the restraint with which the quartet played the celebrated Adagio made it more affecting.

The Op. 131, which occupied the second half, requires a steady narrative line as well as strong musical chops, and the Fry Street has these. It showed good ensemble throughout, notably in the final movement, with its many rapid changes of dynamics, its gruffness and bluster, and its sudden shifts in mood and tempo.

No part of this work got an exceptional reading, and the group’s steady control of its interpretation came at the cost of some emotional temperature. But then again, the boisterousness of the fifth movement brought generous applause from the audience, which showed that this admirable foursome had succeeded in keeping the crowd’s attention through one of the most demanding works in the literature to play and hear. – G. Stepanich