http://www.timesonline.co.uk/0,,1-245-951947,00.html

January 05, 2004 London Times

Aviv Quartet
By Hilary Finch
Concert - Wigmore Hall

IF WINTER is here, can spring be far behind? Not if you're in the presence of the Aviv Quartet: there's fresh, rising sap in everything they play.
Although they have been together for only five years, these young players are keeping alive a distinctively Russian-Jewish tradition of playing, while also re-energising it with a character very much their own.
Shostakovich is, not surprisingly, close to their hearts. The only disc for sale at their Wigmore recital was of the composer's eighth and ninth quartets - on a little-known Israeli label. On the strength of their performance of the Ninth Quartet on Saturday, they should be snapped up by any company eager to add a new Shostakovich cycle to the catalogue.

This was a remarkably mature performance of a rich and mature work. The Aviv Quartet fuse high-fibre playing with a fine sense of melodic melancholy which goes straight to the heart of Shostakovich. They also have a firm grip on the form of this ever-shifting, single-movement work.

Already in their Beethoven and Schumann before the interval, it was apparent that the heart of this ensemble beats very much at its centre. Shuli Waterman's robust viola and Evgenia Epshtein's second violin give a sinewy core to the quartet - and nowhere more thrillingly than in the second slow section of Shostakovich's Ninth, where these two voices led the way in the lacerating pizzicato before the anguished violin recitative by Sergey Ostrovsky.

This is certainly an ensemble of strong individual characters. With the poised and finely drawn cello playing of Rachel Mercer, these voices create a tough network of responses which sets up some real challenges for both the players themselves and for their audience.

This was clear from the start of their recital, when Beethoven's Quartet No 11, Op 95, the Quartetto serioso, lived up to its name in being seriously fierce, seriously feisty and seriously fast.

Again, the sheer strength of those inner voices gave biting attack to every entry, a keen edge to every chord. The old-style sweetness of Ostrovsky's leading violin silvered the breaths of melody within the bustle of the opening allegro. A sense of physical struggle toughened the raw humour of the finale.

At the centre of the evening stood Schumann. The Aviv's performance of the third quartet of the composer's Op 41 set had a Beethovenian rigour about it. A little more sense of song, and of the emotionally elusive inner life of Schumann's music, would not have come amiss, but this will doubtless grow within their performance.