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A quartet of San Antonio Symphony musicians saved the best program for the last of the three Mozart at the Cathedral series of Mozart Festival concerts Sunday night at San Fernando Cathedral.

About 300 people willing to skip the Super Bowl broadcast attended the evening concert that featured string quartets by Mozart and Sergei Prokofiev, along with a short piece by contemporary composer Michael Nyman.

The quartet was led by violinist Sarah Silver, who sat in the first chair. Also playing were violinist Laura Scalzo, violist Kayleigh Miller and cellist Morgen Johnson.

The group selected to perform the best of Mozart’s late quartets for the program, K. 575, which Mozart composed in 1789 hoping to sell in a set for quartets to Friedrich Wilhelm II, the king of Prussia and an accomplished cellist.

Thus the cello has a prime role in the String Quartet No. 21. Johnson certainly carried out the cello’s voice well, including in the second movement in a dialogue with Silver’s first-violin part. Johnson had another big part in the trio section of the third-movement minuetto.

The players delivered a taut, muscular performance of the contemplative, conversational work. In the final movement, it was clear Mozart loved the main theme so much, he was reluctant to leave it, repeating it in the final coda until he finally gave up with two bright, final notes. Each movement featured distinct, beautiful melodies. For people unfamiliar with chamber music, Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21 is an excellent entry point.

The Prokofiev String Quartet No. 1 of 1931 provided a clear contrast, partly because it was in a minor key vs. the D major of the Mozart quartet. As a touring musician, Prokofiev spend a large portion of his life on trains, and it was easy to detect Sunday night the clickety-clack of rail travel in the opening bars of the first movement, a theme that came back twice.

The drama, conveyed by a big Russian sound emphasized by the musicians, developed deep into the second and final movements. The middle movement was really two movements, with a slow beginning, followed by quicker, frenetic passages.

The short, three-minute Nyman work, titled “In Re Don Giovanni,” started the concert. Nyman deconstructed part of the “Catalogue Song” from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” opera for a happy, uplifting rhythmic work that began in one melodic line and then added a second line from the cello and third from the viola.

dhendricks@express-news.net

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