Vega Quartet Makes a Triumphant L.A. Debut

And still they come, the highly accomplished, brightly polished young string quartets. Making its local debut Sunday afternoon, a multiple-competition winner, the Vega String Quartet, joined the parade. And triumphed.

Four young people from Shanghai who graduated from the conservatory there, then went their separate ways only to re-form under a new ensemble name, the Vega quartet--violinists Wendy Yun Chen and Jessica Shuang Wu, violist Yinzi Kong and cellist Guang Wang--appeared in the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series. Performed twice, its intermission-less program--Haydn’s Quartet in G, Opus 76, No. 1, Soonjung Suh’s “Reminiscence” and the Debussy Quartet--gave a full picture of the ensemble’s abundant strengths.

Dominant is a single-minded and relentless concentration that gives sweep and perspective to the music at hand. The group’s Haydn possessed surface beauties, mechanical superiority and a compelling sense of authority. It glowed with musicality and balance.

In contrast, “Reminiscence” specialized in hostile feelings, anger, anxiety and even violence; what the composer seems to be remembering is all negative. The quartet gave the 10-minute piece a fair and disturbing account.

Equally full-throated yet markedly different, the Debussy work realized all the disparate hues in the composer’s palette, from fragile delicacy to virile aggression and eloquent songfulness. It is a great canvas, and its many beauties were revealed again here, in a magnificent setting, the recently restored, 52-year-old Harvey Aluminum House above Los Feliz.