ORFORD, Quebec — The name of this small municipality in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec has had musical resonance since 1951, when a summer camp opened at the foot of midsize Mount Orford in the midst of a wooded provincial park. In 1965, what was then still an outpost of Jeunesses Musicales du Canada gave birth to the Orford String Quartet, for many years the best-known chamber ensemble in the country.
Various expansionary experiments with orchestras, opera productions, and off-site concerts have come and gone at Orford Musique, as the combined academy and festival now calls itself. Through all the changes, the place has remained a low-stress setting for high-caliber performances of standard chamber repertoire. The fail-safe theme composer of 2025: Beethoven. The admirable performers on July 12: the Calidore String Quartet.
This New York-based group, founded in 2010, recently completed recording a Beethoven cycle for Signum Records. There could be no doubt in 550-seat Salle Gilles-Lefebvre of the big-picture confidence of the players and their scrupulous attention to detail.
Balance and refinement were the keywords. Cellist Estelle Choi played the humorous opening theme of Op. 59, No. 1, distinctly on the mezzo side of mezzoforte and articulated the purely rhythmic motif of the second movement (one of Beethoven’s most scherzando inspirations) with a lightness that suggested gentle wit rather than boisterous debate.
First violinist Jeffrey Myers evoked subtle melancholy in the slow movement by adding a touch of sweetness to his tone (and incidentally communicating to all his status as primus inter pares). He drew chuckles from the crowd with the birdsong cantilena leading to the “Thème russe” finale. One had the sense that, despite the many formal advances with which this first of the middle-period quartets is credited, Beethoven’s teacher Haydn might have found much to enjoy in the Calidore performance.
The elder composer would likely have felt some qualms about the Grosse Fuge, here presented as the finale of Op. 130, but even in this craggy and colossal score, the Calidores kept matters under control. Virtues elsewhere included a featherweight Presto and a tenderly restrained Cavatina. The handsome viola of Jeremy Berry was heard to good advantage in the jovial third movement.
Speaking to the crowd in English — Choi had managed in French in the first half — second violinist Ryan Meehan recounted the well-known story of Beethoven’s decision (at the behest of his publisher) to issue the Grosse Fuge as a freestanding piece. Restoration of its original status as a finale has become so common in the concert hall that the lighter Allegro the composer ultimately wrote as an alternative has become something of a rarity. A strange fate for the master’s last completed movement.
For the most part, the Calidore is a pro-vibrato group, although the players regulate the technique carefully and sometimes withhold it for paradoxical emphasis. So it has always been with the best ensembles. The quartet’s default sonority is better described as lean than warm. And while it is not customary to praise musicians for their silences, the Calidores have a remarkable knack for getting the rests and fermatas — so critical in Beethoven — just right.
Facing a salvo of bravos from a two-thirds audience, the Calidores offered the Adagio ma non troppo from Beethoven’s Op. 74 as an encore. Sometimes an encore has a special nimbus, and so it was on this occasion. Decorative elements were wonderfully refined.
Now it is my duty to report that Orford Musique has joined the many societies around the continent that regard printed programs as superfluous. We were made aware of the identity of the performers and works on twin television screens above the stage. The effect was comparable to consulting boarding information at an airport.
Biographies and program notes were a few clicks away — as if fiddling with a cellphone during a concert is a satisfactory option. Vive les programmes imprimés!
