Fry Street Quartet has great promise

FRY STREET QUARTET, MADELEINE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES, Cathedral of the Madeleine, Sunday.

The Fry Street Quartet is a young emerging ensemble that shows great promise and has an immense amount of talent.

Formed in 1997 in Chicago, the foursome — violinists Jessica Guideri and Rebecca McFaul, violist Russell Fallstad, cellist Anne Francis — are currently the quartet-in-residence at Utah State University.

Sunday, the quartet came to Salt Lake City for its second local concert in less than six months. First appearing here under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City, the quartet this time was invited to play in the Cathedral of the Madeleine as part of this year's Madeleine Festival.

FSQ played a wonderful program Sunday of Haydn, Britten and Dvorak, in which the four exhibited profound understanding of the music, depth of expression and stunning technical astuteness. This is certainly an ensemble to watch.

The four opened the concert with Haydn's early Quartet in D minor, op. 9, no. 4. Written within the first decade of his compositional career, the work already displays Haydn's distinctive characteristics in the thematic material and musical development. Elements of the baroque are still visible, particularly in the motoric drive of the music, but the work is clearly within classical parameters.

In the D minor Quartet, the first violin dominates the other instruments. Guideri played her part wonderfully and was given solid support by her three colleagues. The four musicians played with eloquent expressiveness, clean lines and articulate execution. The slow movement in particular was given a fluidly lyrical reading.

The Haydn was paired with Britten's Quartet No. 1 in the first half of the concert. Britten is without question one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, writing in all genres. However, he is perhaps best known for his operas and the War Requiem. Chamber music makes up a smaller, but no less important, part of his creative output.

Of the three quartets Britten wrote, the first stems from 1941, while he was still living in the United States. It predates his most famous work, the opera "Peter Grimes," by some four years. And the two works certainly have a great deal in common, principally in the intensity of expressions and emotional force of the music.