Daedalus Quartet gives persuasive performance

Wangen (jr) Chamber music as a royal discipline — this is how one could experience the Daedalus Quartet at the second concert in the Old Town. Kyu-Young Kim, Min-Young Kim (violins), Jessica Thompson (viola) and Raman Ramakrishnan (cello) exhibited the temperamental joy of music-making and an intensely palpable sound presence.

The String Quartet F Major Op. 77 of Joseph Haydn began the program which encompassed several different sound worlds. The first movement's mood was free, lithe and spiced with a soupçon of longing which attained an unusual intensity which continued in the minuet with rhythmic rubatos and accents.

The velvety tone of the trio sets a counterpoise. An elegant sequence of variations followed — candy coated with a delicate shine and subtle solo passages. With its rhythmic precision, the final movement provided a complete musical panorama, tossed out by the quartet with ease in one harmonious, perfect whole.

In his Three Pieces for String Quartet Igor Stravinsky manifests his delight in playing with tones and sounds — and they seemed to be written on the bodies of the four musicians. Only some tempo indications — they left the interpretation to the listener. The densely packed sounds of the first piece stuck musical microlithes into the ears, splinters of motifs, rhythms and harmonies. The last piece displayed its own understanding of harmony, not really dissonant, with feeling , and requiring an extremely delicate use of the bow.

The Quartet "Flight from the Labyrinth" by the Scottish composer David Horne was a unique sensual experience. Flageolet clusters, which dissolved in swirls of sound, threatening voice whispers and groaning strings - as alienating as all this may sound the structure of a classical string quartet remained discernible and the distant echo of Haydn lent inner cohesion.

More forgiving to the ear, but not less emotionally potent, the quartet ended the concert with the string quartet in A minor by Felix Mendelssohn. Set narrowly, with the voices dense, so in the very first movement all lightness had disappeared. The Adagio began with a quiet choral melody from which spun a fugue, which, at the end threw off all softness. Only with the intermezzo of the third movement did the pendulum swing back and forth between a penetrating "ear wig" melody and a weightless weaving of voices.

The richness of motifs, sound variations and technical precision of the movement, dissolved in the final movement in a climax of sound. The composer returned to the Adagio-the quiet ending at the beginning of the second movement-and the work, despite all passion, softly faded away.