IF the players in the Michelangelo String Quartet made a single strategic miscalculation in their six-concert cycle of Beethoven's String Quartets, which concluded on Wednesday night in Perth, then it was in that final concert and occurred in their performance of the sixth and last of Beethoven's early opus 18 set.

Bluntly, I think they misread Beethoven's thinking in the strange introduction to the finale, where the composer writes an unusual, slow preface to the movement, entitling it La Malinconia (Melancholy) and where he seems to be considering his predicament (advancing deafness). But it's what happens next where the group stumbled in their understanding. Beethoven abruptly elbows indulgence off the park and releases a cathartic, bracing finale.

But the Michelangelos adopted a puzzlingly pedestrian approach, well-played, but not making much sense. One professional speculated that, because the group wasn't touring the series, and everything, therefore, was only being played once, the musicians possibly hadn't had the opportunity to "play it in", when changes might have come with repetition of the piece.

Fortunately, the group was back in razor-sharp form for the second half, which was given over to a monumental performance of Beethoven's colossal, six-movement, opus 130 Quartet, with the composer's original finale, the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) re-attached to the quartet as its finale.

And the Michelangelos powered through that finale with all the grit, abrasiveness, bloody-minded doggedness and aggression that Beethoven wrote into the music. Apart from the towering virtuosity and stamina clearly displayed throughout the performance, an abiding memory was the ferocious intensity of concentration emanating from the group in this minefield of a piece where one slip would mean disaster. Magnificent.

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