The Pacifica Quartet and Anthony McGill

San Francisco Performances presented the Pacifica Quartet last Tuesday at Herbst Theater in a conservative yet stimulating program. The quartet started with Dvorak's 1893 String Quartet in F Major, "American", a charming piece incorporating a few "native" tunes and Red-eyed Vireo bird calls that Dvorak picked up during his three-year residency in the United States. I heard the Friction Quartet play this a couple of years ago and I wrote: "They gave an intense performance that was lively and interesting throughout, though I usually prefer my Dvorak a little gentler." The Pacifica performance was much gentler and if it leaned on the side of dullness, the playing and the music itself were genuinely beautiful. (Pictured are Simin Ganatra, violin; Mark Holloway, violin; Brandon Vamos, cello; and Austin Hartman, viola.)

The guest star of the evening was Anthony McGill (above), the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic who has been performing and recording chamber music with the Pacifica Quartet for a few years. Composer Ben Shirley's 2020 High Sierra Sonata is one of the four pieces on their 2022 recording American Stories, and it comes with quite a backstory. Bassist for Epic Records for 25+ years, alcoholic and drug addict whose descent bottomed out in LA's Skid Row in 2011, marathon runner with a group from the Midnight Mission homeless shelter, scholarship student to the SF Conservatory of Music, Shirley finally became a working composer for film and concert stages and is currently living in Ohio.

The three-movement High Sierra Sonata is a consistently pretty, tuneful work that sounded a bit like an extension of Dvorak's American scene painting. Lisa Hirsch at SFCV liked it a lot while Stephen Smoliar at The Rehearsal Studio did not. I was in the proper mood and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the opening sound effects that sounded like wind going through pine needles.

After intermission, the Pacifica Quartet and Anthony McGill gave a masterful performance of the 1891 Brahms Quintet in B Minor for Clarinet and Strings. The quintet is one of the last things Brahms ever composed, and it's long, serious, utterly gorgeous, and ultimately sad. I had a recording as a teenager and have heard it on classical radio for decades but this was the first ever live performance. It did not disappoint.