FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM (Punch Shaw)
“Program soars, despite absence”
Van Cliburn Hall at Bass Hall, Fort Worth, Texas
January 28, 2002

FORT WORTH - A great deal of memorable music was made by a handful of musicians at the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth performance at Van Cliburn Recital Hall on Sunday. But the sound that may be remembered longest was made by The Man Who Wasn't There - and this perhaps is an injustice. The musicians who did show up - society Artistic Director Robert Davidovici (violin), Associate Director Carter Enyeart (cello), Julia Bushkova (violin), Susan Dubois (viola) and Petronel Malan (piano) - played beautifully, as is so often the case with this group.
The string players opened the concert with Quartettsatz, by Franz Schubert. 
The String Quartet No. 2 in A major by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, which followed, was one of those pieces that is easy to admire for its structure and its unusual treatment of the quartet form. The work is really more of a suite for small ensemble than a traditional quartet. 
The second movement, for example, is built like a violin concerto with the first violin taking on soloist chores over minimal, sustained lines played by his three cohorts. The only difference was that the movement seemed longer than most violin concertos. And the piece, as a whole, managed to commit most of the sins common to 20th-century music during its seemingly endless 41 minutes. Many in the audience appeared to lose interest, or consciousness, within the first few measures.
The quartet was joined by Malan, the South African pianist, for Cesar Franck's Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor.Because of the richness and density of both the composition and the performance, the five players sounded more like 55 in this three-movement work. Malan blended beautifully with the strings. Employing an exceptionally clean and pure tone, she was always where she needed to be without calling undue attention to herself. Overall, it was a magnificent display of both precision and grandeur.
The concert also featured something new: a stage. It was an improvement both visually and aurally. But as good as it was, this was not the concert we were supposed to see. Since last fall, the scheduled pianist was to be one of the silver medalists from last year's Cliburn competition, Maxim Philippov. Approximately three weeks ago, however, Philippov asked to be released from his contract to play another engagement - one that had been offered by the Russian minister of culture. So it seems any ill will about the cancellation should probably be directed at Russian bureaucrats and not at Philippov.