calimac

The San Jose Chamber Music Society director's pre-concert announcement included the score of the Super Bowl. I hate when they do that. I play a little challenge game every year: how long - without active evasive tactics on my part - can I go without finding out who won the Super Bowl? Sometimes it's been two or three days if I lack time to read the paper Monday morning. 7 p.m. Sunday evening is not a very high result.

Anyway, back to the concert. This quartet, I mean Quartett, consists of players from the Berlin Philharmonic, mostly first-chair. They are very, very German. Brisk, organized, businesslike playing, pure mind and no heart. Mozart's K.464 came out crabbed and hermeneutic, as if it were trying to be late Beethoven. Shostakovich's Second came out wildly Expressionist, as if it were trying to be Alban Berg. Brahms's Op. 51 Nr. 1 came out, unsurprisingly, like Brahms.

I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention to the music. I was sitting there wishing I hadn't had lunch that day.