Vogler Quartet’s UM show masterful

ORONO – Hearing a great string quartet is like watching the motion of a school of fish swim, or a flock of birds as they fly. Everything happens naturally, with no apparent effort, and yet everything happens perfectly.

The Vogler Quartet of Berlin is exactly that kind of string quartet, and the audience at Sunday afternoon’s concert at Minsky Hall at the University of Maine in Orono was treated to a masterful performance by this veteran ensemble. Despite the musicians’ youthful appearance, the Vogler Quartet was founded more than 20 years ago and still consists of all four original members: violinists Tim Vogler and Frank Reinecke; violist Stefan Fehlandt and cellist Stephan Forck.

During the course of the program each member of the group had a chance to display both solo and ensemble virtuosity. But in the first piece of the concert, the String Quartet No. 21 in D Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, it was the remarkable playing of cellist Forck that took center stage. With a timbre that can only be described as a big, sweet, round sound, Forck performed passionately and precisely from the lowest notes of his instrument’s range all the way up into the soprano notes on the high end of the fingerboard.

After a lucid performance of the Mozart, with its rather architectural structure, it was an interesting transition to the next work, the String Quartet, Op. 3 of Alban Berg, which features a peculiarly conceptual musical structure. Berg wrote this piece in sections of 40 and then 33 measures, confining his expositions in anxiety and panic to a strict numerical framework. The Berg composition is brash and disturbing. The Vogler Quartet played it with a rich audio quality that attracted the ear just as the composition repelled it. The combination was fascinating.

After the intermission, the quartet returned to the audience for a performance of Antonin Dvorak’s American String Quartet, No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96. Written during Dvorak’s famous visit to the United States in the late 19th century, the piece is one European’s impression of America during the golden years before World War I. As the Vogler Quartet, a group of European musicians, interpreted this idealized European view of America, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of music Dvorak would write if he were to visit our country today. Musings about American identity aside, this piece is filled with energy, optimism and a sweetness of spirit, and the Vogler Quartet played it as it was written: as a love song to a young country with wings on its feet and stars in its eyes.

After several curtain calls, the Vogler Quartet obliged the enthusiastic audience with a brief but spirited encore: The Scherzo from Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130.

If any criticism can be leveled at the members of the Vogler String Quartet of Berlin, it might be that they made it look too easy. It’s hard to be suitably awed when magnificent music seems to happen as naturally as the flight of birds.

Helen York can be reached for comment at heyork@hotmail.com