The quartet played a school show in Hamilton the day after their concert there. They were greeted by a rock band setup at the school!

Josh is surrounded by a gaggle of his fans after the school show…and Sandy and Daniel were surrounded by…no fans…they were sad.

While the SU Orange was trouncing Villanova just a few miles down the road in front of an all-time college basketball record attendance of 34,616 spectators at the Carrier Dome, an equally brilliant team effort was in the making at Lincoln Middle School Auditorium. And while it may not have been a complete slam-dunk, the Miró Quartet dazzled the crowd with a winning performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major that deserved its lengthy and enthusiastic standing ovation — if not high-fives — among the clearly delighted listeners in attendance.

Central New York chamber music enthusiasts are already familiar with the Miró Quartet, and in particular its handling of late-Beethoven and Schubert quartets, from the ensemble’s August 2008 appearance at the Skaneateles Festival — which over a two-day period included a pair of highly energetic performances of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet. Yet while Saturday evening’s muscular rendition of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 appeared to pick up right where the group left off a year and a half ago, Miró’s cautious interpretation of Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887 seemed far more reserved, oftentimes sacrificing spontaneity and enthusiasm for straightforward detail of execution.

Schubert’s final string quartet, which remained unpublished (and unplayed) until some two decades following his death in 1828, is a challenging work of considerable difficulty whose excessive length (about 45-minutes) and dramatic intensity places formidable demands not only upon the performers, but upon the listener as well. Like the composer’s cathartic C Major Quintet, the G Major Quartet demands nothing shy of a riveting performance to maintain that elusive bond that glues the listener to the listening experience.

Miró’s calculated interpretation of this warhorse, while technically clean and accurate in the execution of the work’s abundant melodic lines, was nevertheless musically sterile — with middle-of-the-road tempos that muted the contrasts between slow and fast movements necessary to garnish listener excitement and anticipation. Thus, the second (andante) movement seamed too hurried to savor Schubert’s melodic grace and elegance, while the slower-than-usual tempos of the third (scherzo) and fourth (allegro assai) movements produced phrases that appeared deliberate and calculating — as if the performers were checking the work, measure by measure, for balance and accuracy of pitch.

There were, to be sure, lots of ensemble touches that did work rather well — such as Miró’s sharply delineated dotted-rhythmic patterns throughout the über-dramatic first (allegro molto moderato) movement and tremolo recitative during the second (andante) movement, each of which convincingly captured the exaggerated melodrama of Schubert’s misery and pathos.

Whatever shortcomings may have been evident in the first-half of the two-work program seemed to evaporate following intermission, however, as Miró re-entered the auditorium for the Beethoven quartet with a renewed sense of purpose and determination — leading me to wonder whether the players unconsciously decided to save their strength for this monumental masterpiece.

The six-movement string quartet, performed on this occasion with Beethoven’s originally intended last movement (the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133), was written less than a year before Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 — although it’s no exaggeration to say that at times it sounds as if it could have been written a century later. Like much of Beethoven’s output from his late period, the B-flat Major Quartet challenges the listener’s sensibilities with quickly alternating mood swings and tempo changes (recent scholarship by a University of Ottawa psychiatrist suggests that Beethoven was bi-polar), surrounded by a meditative introspection that belies the stylistic modus operandi of the composer’s more accessible (and widely appreciated) middle-period.

As the story goes, Beethoven couldn’t bring himself to attend the work’s premiere in Vienna on March 21, 1826, electing instead to wait at a tavern nearby. Had it been the Miró Quartet who premiered the work, Beethoven would have done well to finish his beer and quickly proceed to the concert hall.

The difference between the program’s two halves was soon apparent, as Miró drew warmth and tenderness from Beethoven’s affectionate adagio introduction and then delivered the following allegro with spontaneity and alacrity. Ensemble was tight throughout the movement, in spite of a brief miscue on the part of the cellist, with cleanly articulated inner voicings (second violin and viola) complementing a four-voice texture buoyed by first-violinist Daniel Ching and tidily anchored by cellist Joshua Gindele.

In the second (presto) movement, the ensemble navigated the spunky four-measure phrases built upon the circle-of-fifths with grace and élan, and Ching’s wild triplet argeggiations sang sweetly and securely above the three other voices. Following this movement, and again following the fourth, Miró took a brief moment to re-tune the instruments — a sign that the group takes issues of intonation seriously. Indeed, except for the first movement of the Schubert, Miró’s pitch throughout the evening was right on target.

Other signs of good ensemble interplay were evident in the passing of melodic figures from instrument-to-instrument in the third (andante con moto) movement, and especially during the fourth-movement danza tedesca (German dance) — where unaccompanied melodic motifs bouncing seamlessly from player-to-player would surely have pleased even SU Orange coach, Jim Boeheim.

Led by Ching’s beautiful playing, the sensuous and aria-like Cavatina (fifth) movement, while perhaps just a tad too fast for maximum expression, produced a suitably meditative effect and poignancy. Beethoven is said to have written this tender movement “…amid sorrow and tears.”

Although Beethoven had substituted a shorter, separate movement for the finale of the B-flat Major Quartet following its premiere, the lengthy original movement (now known as the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133) is commonly used today, as it was for this performance.

There’s lots of fire and brimstone within the measures of this abstract (and at times abstruse) movement, which demands brash and uninhibited playing that oftentimes borders on the extreme. Miró delivered the sharply edged, turbulent fugal subjects and counter-subjects with panache, reaching deeply into the music to arrive at the raw, emotional core of a musical genius reaching the final strides of his life. When the final cadence sounded, the usually mild-mannered Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music crowd erupted into boisterous shouts of approval, and a prolonged — and well deserved — standing ovation.

After an absence of almost five years, the Miro String Quartet returns to Hamilton this Sunday afternoon to whip up a musical smorgasbord.Their regale will include an entire second half made up of quartet movements a la carte.

The Miro’s musical menu will list various movements by composers such as Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Smetana, Ives, Bartok, and others. Patrons at their Hamilton Conservatory concert will choose which movements they’d like to hear via a ballot in their program booklet. These ballots will be tabulated, and the four or five movements receiving the most votes will be served up after intermission.

It’s all part of the Miro’s goal to engage its audience in the product onstage. Which is all fine and dandy. But who or what can ensure that this doesn’t devolve into a dog’s breakfast of quartet movements with no stylistic relation to each other?

“We’ve very much carefully chosen the movements we have (a la carte), ” said cellist Joshua Gindele, reached on his cellphone last week while walking his dog near his home in Austin, Texas, where the Miros are based. “We can almost predict fairly well what the last part of the concert is going to consist of. But every audience is different.”

The first half will be dished out table d’hote, so to speak, and includes Samuel Barber’s String Quartet with its famous Adagio.

The concert will begin with the opening and final three movements of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross, a piece originally composed for orchestra but later arranged for string quartet.

The translated title is a bit of a misnomer. Those “Words, ” or rather “Worte” in Haydn’s original German title, are best rendered as “sayings” or “quotations.” The sayings were culled from the Biblical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Haydn gave each saying a separate movement, and placed the applicable quotation in Latin translation underneath the opening notes of the first violin’s part. As such, they look like lyrics. But having the first violinist sing them wasn’t Haydn’s intent. The quotations merely serve as a departure point for Haydn’s musical commentary on Jesus’ sayings.

The Miros have been including this work in their concerts over the past year. At times, they’ve done it with a narrator or a minister speaking the sayings. At other times, they’ve done it with a Trinidadian slam poet. For their Chamber Music Hamilton concert, they’re not sure how they’ll treat these sayings.

“My violist (John Largess) is a Latin and Greek scholar and former archeologist (who studied at Hebrew University in Israel), ” said Gindele. “So, if you want it in Latin or Greek, or really any ancient language, I think he can do it.” Sounds like the perfect opportunity to hear them in Aramaic, widely considered Jesus’s mother tongue.

While the work has overt Christian ties, Gindele denies that the Miros are making a religious statement by performing it.

“No, no, no, ” emphasized Gindele. “It’s music that deserves to be performed. It doesn’t get its due … It really is great music. We felt that it needed a little attention.”

On Monday, the Miros will be turning their attention to a school concert they’re giving in the auditorium at Westdale Secondary, 700 Main St. W. The one-hour concert begins at 1 p.m. and is geared for students aged nine to 18. Cost is $2 per person. For info, contact Carol at 905-528-0763.

This Sunday at 3 p.m., organists Paul Grimwood and Brent Fifield perform Bach and Franck at Central Presbyterian, 165 Charlton Ave. W. Free-will offering.

Next Friday, March 5 at 8 p.m., Triple Forte, that Canadian powerhouse trio of violinist Jasper Wood, cellist Yegor Dyachkov, and pianist David Jalbert, perform at McMaster’s Con Hall. Tickets: $17, senior $12, student $5. Call 905-525-9140, ext. 24246.

Leonard Turnevicius writes about classical music for The Hamilton Spectator.

Carrying a string quartet in your pocket has never been easier.

The Miro Quartet became the first string quartet with an iPhone application in October. The app helps fans stay up to date on the quartet with posts from its Web site, Facebook and Twitter. It also links to performance videos and the group’s recordings, including the recent “The Miro Quartet Live!”

Chamber music enthusiasts, however, won’t have to rely on the tiny iPhone to hear the quartet. Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music host the quartet Saturday at Lincoln Middle School.

Violinists Daniel Ching and Sandy Yamamoto, violist John Largess and cellist Joshua Gindele will perform Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major and Beethoven’s Opus 130.

Such traditional pieces may seem to run counter to the quartet’s reputation for being unconventional. In 2001, the classical musicians rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in Arizona and performed on riverbanks as part of the Grand Canyon Music Festival. But, in Syracuse, they won’t be playing ordinary Beethoven. The group eliminates the last movement of Opus 130, an allegro, in favor of the original ending — a fugue, also known as Opus 133. Beethoven’s publisher thought it was too progressive for audiences when it was written in the 1820s.

The quartet doesn’t just play “meat and potatoes” composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert, Gindele said in a recent phone interview. His colleagues’ interests vary from new music to Haydn. Yet, their different tastes do not make agreeing on concert programs difficult.

“There is so much great music for the string quartet, we’re never going to run out,” he said of the quartet, which was formed at Oberlin College’s Music Conservatory in 1995. “There’s always something interesting in what my colleagues have interest in playing. There’s no reason to argue about it.”

The Miro Quartet’s harmony on and off stage is rare. Gindele said quartets have a reputation for “tumultuous” relationships because players tend to strong willed.

“Even though we have completely different concepts of how that music is supposed to go,” he said, “there’s synergy between different musical personalities getting along.”

Currently, in residence at the University of Texas at Austin, the Miro Quartet continues to distinguish itself in the classical world with its iPhone app and social networking sites.

“It’s the future of marketing,” Gindele said. “We’re not doing anything that people in the pop world haven’t been doing for a long time.”

The details
What: The Miro Quartet, presented by Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.
Where: Lincoln Middle School, 1613 James St., Syracuse.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets: $20; senior, $15; student, $10. Available at the door.

Right after the concert with David Finckel, co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (his wife Wu Han is the other director).  David mixed the ‘tinis himself for us.

Solomonic decisions are often necessary in Montreal, which is the world capital of scheduling conflicts, at least where music is concerned. The principal choice on Sunday was between a more interesting program (pianist Anne-Marie Dubois for Pro Musica) and a bigger audience (the Miró String Quartet and pianist Shai Wosner for the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club).

I followed the path of democracy to Pollack Hall and did not regret it after the Mirós (formed in 1995 but still young-looking) and Wosner (an Israeli-American in his early 30s) collaborated in Dvorak’s Piano Quintet Op. 81. Warm, playful and powerful elements were held in a tight balance; rapid tempos did not attenuate the sweet first violin of Daniel Ching or the oaky viola of John Largess.

The latter was heard in a particularly fruitful dialogue with Wosner in the Dumka, the most overtly Czech-sounding of the four movements. The Scherzo, repeated as an encore, was a marvel of gracious levity. Throughout, the listener was made newly aware of harmonic and rhythmic detail. This was the sort of performance you carry happily in your head for the rest of the day.

Playing was less fastidious before intermission in Schumann’s Piano Quintet. The solemn march was fairly captured but the fast movements were pushed in both volume and velocity. The opening chord of the finale sounded like an atonal thrust.

There was nothing this extreme in Beethoven Op. 135, offered as a demonstration of what the Miró players (including Sandy Yamamoto, second violin, and Joshua Gindele, cello) could do without a pianist. Still, the tone was flinty and the Vivace movement surpassed the speed limit, with inelegant results. Beethoven’s last completed quartet is not an ideal forum for ramshackle energy.

A fashion footnote: we are not supposed to care, but given the wide identification of string quartet playing with togetherness, is it really wise to wear four different outfits, as the Mirós did? A travel question: since Wosner was playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with the Chicago Symphony on Saturday night, just when and where was this program rehearsed?