The Pacifica Quartet brims with personality.  Each performance is a well-honed musical dialogue, its players captivating in a way rarely observed.  The quartet was in fine form Sunday on its home stage at the University of Chicago’s Mandel (no relation to this reviewer) Hall. 

Following the success of last year’s Shostakovich quartet cycle and dual disc release on Cedille Records earlier this year, the program began with the String Quartet No. 13 by Shostakovich contemporary Nikolai Myaskovsky.  Like Shostakovich, Myaskovsky had to navigate his career through the mire of Stalinist-era arts policy; the quartet is one of his final works (1949), and contains a dichotomy of life-affirming and emotionally distant passages.  The gentle melody that opens in the cello was warmly played by Brandon Vamos in obvious contrast to the thin backing in the violins and viola.  Simin Ganatra’s frenetic fiddling throughout the presto was held in check by an imploring pizzicato line repeated in the cello.  The third movement is an impressionistic andante awash in swaths of color; the Pacifica’s tone was so impeccable that one could be fooled into thinking it is easily achieved.  The quartet concludes with a burst of energy, double-stops in the cello and viola driving the fierceness.

A rehearsal of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 by the Beethoven Quartet is said to have brought the composer to tears in a rare show of emotion.  Written three years before the Myaskovsky quartet, the work runs deep with the dark sarcasm that is as much a Shostakovich signature as the DSCH theme pervading many of his other works.  The playful, child-like melody in the beginning becomes distorted after one reiteration, and the movement descends into a hollow abyss; when the main theme emerges at the end, it is a merely a cruel wisp of nostalgia.  The second movement, a disorienting waltz, and the jarring chords and tumultuous pace of the third pave the way for the searing adagio.  Vamos’ cello and Masumi Per Rostad’s viola describe a world of loss, devoid of joy—they seemed to access a personal darkness known only to Shostakovich.  In closing, the composer writes perhaps the most challenging movement in the work, as fragments of melody float by without development.  Whatever innocence we saw in the beginning melody has been decimated by the end.  The Pacifica has an innate sense of Shostakovich’s manic tendencies, evident in the paranoia that runs through their performance.

In an intriguing bit of programming, the Pacifica closed the concert with Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, no.3 (“Hero”).  The Pacifica needed only the work’s introduction to make clear the connection, bringing the same sense of tension and questioning direction from Shostakovich to Beethoven.  The shock of allegro came from nowhere, and the ensemble adroitly handled the ensuing hairpin emotional swings.  The lamenting second movement features a wistful tune complemented by the buoyant minuet—all a way to set up the fireworks of the fugue and rapid ascent of the final movement.  The Pacifica brought the full sonic force of Beethoven to bear, maintaining an impossibly fast tempo without compromising tone or articulation.  Beethoven forces the musicians to crank up the volume, and the Pacifica sounded more like an octet at times; its brilliance lay in the ability to fade instantly to reveal the intimacy of Beethoven’s writing.

In the hands of this foursome, one clearly hears the composer at work, wondering aloud, rejoicing, mourning.  Not a single musical gesture is wasted, and the music seems to take flight to a place of transcendence few ensembles of any size achieve.