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| American Record Guide |
| Gateway to Enlightenment |
| By Gil French |
| Published: November 2007 |
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" The evening opened with the competition’s jaw-dropping group, the Ariel Quartet, founded in Jerusalem in 1998 and now residing in the USA. There’s a saying, “Don’t mess with Texas”; in Israel you don’t mess with music—it’s played with a concentration and intensity not found elsewhere. Here were four players, each a consummate master, who captured all the “old world” qualities: long lyrical lines, the ability to shape not just phrases but single measures with breadth and nuance, and the ability to switch in Opus 77:1 from romantically lyrical lines to facetious playfulness with total musicality in the time it takes you to say “Haydn”. But it was their Bartok No. 4 that was the “Oh, that’s what it’s all about!” moment of the competition, when Amit Even-Tov played her cello solo in the third movement, revealing it as the heart of the entire work. The Ariel was simply beyond technique, a consummate ensemble gifted with utter musicality and remarkable interpretative power"
…"Ariel’s performance of Beethoven’s No. 15 that not only left me paralyzed but made me feel the composer’s final acceptance of all that had been dealt him in life—I was hardly the only one who was so overwhelmed. It was the pinnacle of the competition." |
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| KALAMAZOO GAZETTE |
| Ariel stuns with energy, precision |
| By Matt Steel |
| Published: Monday, October 23, 2006 |
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An outstanding string quartet is so much more than just a collection of four exceptional musicians. It also requires that the musicians have a symbiotic relationship that has been carefully nurtured through time and experience. Youth usually works against such a relationship, but not so with Israel's Ariel Quartet.
Now the Honors String Quartet of New England Conservatory, Ariel has been together since 1998, much of their young lives. In a Fontana Chamber Arts concert on Saturday night at Brook Lodge in Augusta, violinists Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violist Sergey Taraschansky and cellist Amit Even-Tov displayed the remarkable, cohesive musicianship that earned Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Saturday's program was wonderfully balanced and varied with works from the classic, Romantic and modern eras. Gerchikov played first violin in the Haydn's ``String Quartet in F Major'' as well as in the Shostakovich's ``String Quartet in D Major.'' He is an excellent leader, playing his part masterfully as he subtly monitored the ensemble's balance, tempo and myriad nuances.
Ariel depended on its energy and precision, rather than its dynamic power, to create a stunning performance. There were no clouds of rosin or broken bow hairs to show for their effort. Staying within the confines of good sound qualities, they allowed extraordinary ensemble cohesion and pitch accuracy to generate thrills.
However, they did not lack virtuosity. The Finale (vivace assai) to the Haydn quartet was tremendously exciting as the musicians played so vigorously that the cello's endpin came unmoored from its spot in the floor. Again, in the energetic scherzo of the Mendelssohn's ``String Quartet in E Minor,'' each member played the ubiquitous and pesky little four-note motive with great exactitude.
There were also moments of extreme beauty and grace as in Even-Tov's cello solos in Haydn's simple third-movement andante and in Kazovsky's lyrical violin line in Mendelssohn's andante movement. The ensemble delicacy achieved in the Andantino of the Shostakovich was uncanny.
The most challenging work of Saturday's program was probably the Shostakovich because it pitted warm and expressive passages against rough-hewn peasant music. In the first and fourth movements, each marked allegretto, there are drones reminiscent of the hurdy-gurdy accompanying modal tunes that move in and out of a foreground of sometimes mysterious and often agitated counterpoint. Here Ariel was marvelous, effecting the peasantlike passages to perfection in a vibratoless simplicity and then quickly restoring the vibrato for the angular and dissonant ``high art'' music.
Somewhere beneath the polish and professionalism of Ariel's performance, there lingers a hint of the enthusiastic young students that they are. No doubt they have benefited from some of the finest quartet training available anywhere, and it takes time for an ensemble to establish its unique identity. Right now, they hold the promise of completely realizing that identity very soon.
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| Submitted to the Tinley Park STAR Newspapers |
| Norton Building Concert Series - October 15, 2006 concert review |
| By D. J. Luksetich |
| Published: October 15, 2006 |
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The Norton Building Concert Series in Lemont hosted the Ariel Quartet on Sunday October 15 in a concert spanning 150 years of string quartet repertoire. The quartet, Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon
Gerchikov, violins, Sergey Tarashchansky, viola, and Amit Even-Tov, cello, recently won the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, one of the most prestigious music contests in the
world.
The concert opened with Haydn's Quartet in F from 1799. The performance immediately introduced the audience to the dramatic nature of the group, musically able with a very intense physicality.
The latter was most obvious in the cello playing of Even-Tov whose bow often resembled a weapon.
The performance, however, seemed enhanced by the quartet's immersion in the music and their feverish internal communication. The music of Haydn became transparent, with quartet reduced sometimes to contrasting duets and individual passages shining with the support of trio. The second movement minuetto was simply dazzling and the stately violin/cello opening of the andante transformed to majestic quartet, produced an incredibly immaculate soft ending.
Shostakovich's 1949 String Quartet No. 4 came next. The group's versatility shown through in this "screaming" composition. The finale's pizzicato elements neatly wove into a dance resulting in a lonesome cello ending which Even-Tov handled brilliantly.
The final piece on the program was Brahm's A minor Quartet written in 1873. The passion of the Ariel Quartet took on a different tone from the music of Shostakovich as Kazovsky assumed first chair from the very able Gerchikov and added a feeling of pathos to the sound of the group. Tarashchansky's viola continuously emerged from the texture showing a broad range of feeling. This music illustrated the wide range of the quartet's talent and the accelerated finale gave the performance a spectacular ending. |
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| KALAMAZOO GAZETTE |
| Ariel Quartet serves up finest fare of Fontana opening |
| By William R. Wood |
| Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006 |
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At the end of the opening of the Fontana Chamber Arts 2006 Summer Music Festival Wednesday night, there was no doubt that the Ariel Quartet was the star of the evening.
That was no easy feat, as the concert, given at the Kalamazoo Nature Center, contained performances by three other notable ensembles as well. Yet the Ariel Quartet was the clear audience favorite in the sold-out Cooper's Glen Auditorium, where all the music was played.
Fresh from the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in May, when the group took Grand Prize, violinists Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violist Sergey Tarashchansky and cellist Amit Even-Tov were as mesmerizing to watch as they were to listen to. They played with power, fire and attitude.
The slow, emotional third movement of their Beethoven selection, ``String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor,'' was a stand-out as the group offered punch to dynamics and intensity to the hymnlike phrases in the piece… |
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