3/1998

The Oak Ridger

Beautiful! The word and all its synonyms describes the sound of the Amati String Quartet. On Saturday night at the Pollard Auditorium, Oak Ridge chamber music devotees joined the millions who love this quartet. From Zurich, the group has won several prestigious awards, including the Premier Grand Prix of the International Competition in Evian. The Oak Ridge Civic Music Association was able to bring the quartet here because of the Cyrus Feldman Memorial Trust, a fund set up by Feldman's wife Rose and their children. ... The tone of this quartet consisting of Willi Zimmermann and Katarzyna Nawrotek, violins, Nicolas Corti, viola, and Claudius Hermann, cello, individually and as a whole, is pure satin. If you could see their music-making through a microscope we would also see amazing technical activity. From the stage, however, the easy control of their instruments and the fluid way in which they dovetail notes inside it look all too easy.