By Lyn Bronson
Recently we heard a performance by a world-renowned string quartet on tour, which was playing the same program virtually every other night. This resulted in a super refined, note perfect performance, but also one that was missing a certain amount of spontaneity and vitality. Without the passion of the moment — four musicians responding to the score as it stimulated and drove them during the performance — the audience was curiously unmoved.
Such an over refined performance was not the order of the day yesterday afternoon as the Hidden Valley String Quartet played an intimate concert for a small audience at Hidden Valley Seminars in Carmel Valley. The four players, violinists Roy Malan and Jenny Bifano, violist Darcy Rindt and cellist Vanessa Ruotolo, generated plenty of spontaneity and passion, and if the ensemble was not totally note perfect, the musical values far outweighed the shortcomings.
