The Justice

Media Credit: Julian Agin-Liebes From left, Profs. Daniel Stepner (MUS), Joshua Gordon (MUS) and Mary Ruth Ray (MUS) played Dohnányi's 'Serenade in C Major for String Trio, Op. 10' and Mendelssohn's 'Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13.'

At last week's Music at Noon, a for-the-most-part monthly performance by the Lydian String Quartet in the Rose Art Museum, I counted only two other students, both sitting next to me in the back. I'd estimate the average age of the crowd, nearly 60 people, to be just that-at least 60 years. It's certainly a Brandeis cliché to mourn the lack of students at campus events; however, during this era in the University's history, I think it merits examination.

For those who aren't avid fans of Brandeis' in-house string quartet, the Lydian String Quartet consists of Profs. Daniel Stepner (MUS), first violin; Judith Eissenberg (MUS), second violin; Mary Ruth Ray (MUS), viola; and Joshua Gordon (MUS), cello. The group chooses its programming in five-year cycles; the current cycle, titled "Around the World in a String Quartet," began in the fall of 2006 and has led the four professors to investigate string quartet music from composers of all nations.

Last Saturday's concert, for which the Music at Noon performance served as a sort of preview, featured two traditional European composers, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as well as Ernö Dohnányi, a Hungarian composer whose anti-Nazi sentiments led him to resign his post as director of the Budapest Academy in 1941. Ultimately, Dohnányi emigrated to the United States and taught at Florida State University for ten years, until his death in 1960.

Though Wednesday's program was not exactly to my tastes (it consisted of two pieces-Dohnányi's Serenade in C Major for String Trio, Op. 10 and Mendelssohn's Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13), one certainly cannot question the Lydians' consummate skill. In light of Eissenberg's recent elbow surgery, the quartet was missing its second violinist during the Dohnányi piece. (A substitute violinist, Danielle Maddon, joined the group to play the Mendelssohn piece that followed.) Yet even without one of their members, the group had no trouble filling the gallery with a deep, rich sound.

A highlight of the performance was an introduction to the Mendelssohn quartet-a short song called "Frage" ("Question")-performed by Katherine Schram '09. The song, written by Mendelssohn at the age of 15, was short and simple, but Schram's performance was absolutely wonderful. The quartet that followed, which Mendelssohn wrote about three years after the song, drew from the themes of the short song over the course of its movements.

Despite being reduced to a part-time status as part of the University's economic "belt-tightening," the group has a lot on its plate this spring. Besides its usual Saturday night concert, the group is working on a plan to record Beethoven's last five string quartets. However, Stepner warned me that next season's concert schedule (which corresponds to the 2009 to 2010 academic year) may be cut back due to the group's reduced salaries.

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