THE BALTIMORE SUN Pacifica Quartet April 8, 2008 By Tim Smith Candlelight Concerts, which has an enlightened openness to audience-challenging programs, went all-out in presenting the Pacifica Quartet on Saturday at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia. The top-notch ensemble brought along only one really traditional item, Mozart’s G major Quartet, K. 387, to balance the daunting complexity of Carter’s No. 5 and the considerable spiciness of Prokofiev’s No. 2. Carter, who will turn 100 in December, has long represented the most intellectually rigorous side of abstract, atonal music. His music is derived from complex principles, especially independence—creating separate worlds and rules for each instrument in a piece, yet keeping them all intricately connected. The Fifth Quartet is a perfect example. In 12 short, uninterrupted movements, the 1995 score seesaws between moods—playful, solemn, quizzical—and tempos, not to mention sound effects (pizzicato takes on a whole new communicative dimension here). The Pacifica musicians got deep into this world of sound and motion, delivering a performance ripe with expressive power. The last several movements, in particular, built up terrific tension, from the spiky, aggressive scattershot of the eighth to the pregnant stillness of the 10th and almost elfin abandon of the finale. The Wilde Lake center, a temporary home for Candlelight Concerts until its usual venue at Howard Community College is renovated, is hardly ideal for music. It’s a big, impersonal space with dead acoustics and, at least on Saturday, a constant ambient drone that suggested an industrial-strength white-noise machine. Despite the limitations, it was possible to savor the charms of the Mozart quartet (too bad premature applause drowned out his surprise, quiet ending) and the muscular energy of the Prokofiev piece. In both, the Pacifica players demonstrated superb intonation and richly colored phrasing.