Charismatic Pacifica Quartet can really communicate November 17, 2004 By Jane Vranish The Pacifica Quartet confidently rode a surging musical wave into Carnegie Hall and the hearts of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society audience Monday night. Flamboyant and plum-full of charisma, the group brought its own festival of firsts, with initial string quartet endeavors by Felix Mendelssohn, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Bedrich Smetana.   The program was well suited to a group whose international reputation is growing, playing to its vivid interpretations and fervent communicative abilities.   The Mendelssohn, composed during his teenage years along with the "Octet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," surprisingly established Pacifica's athletic clout in a piece that still had the lacy hallmarks of a classically oriented musician. Flecked with some unnecessary roughness and leaning toward a muscular rather than effortless interpretation, it still took advantage of first violinist Simin Ganatra's wondrous sense of sweeping lyricism. Likewise, it established that this quartet was here to take chances, to make use of every opportunity in each musical moment.   That paid off richly in the Ligeti. But here they took no chances, with the group's sumptuous cellist Brandon Vamos taking the microphone to explain the composer's motives, nicely illustrated by Ganatra, and the Pacifica's delightful approach to what might have been a contemporary blur to some.   Like the subtitle, "Metamorphoses nocturnes," suggests, the ensemble underwent its own transformation, making Ligeti's steely chromatic approach warm and inviting and the numerous fragments eminently coherent. It drew knowing chuckles from the audience over his humorous musical escapades, like the bracing tonality of the dominant and tonic chordal finish at the end of the fourth variation.   By the time it delved into the Smetana, the Pacifica had settled into its stride, opting to dramatically speculate on the composer's lush Romantic urges without overriding some of his darker intent. With the first movement dominated by violist Masumi Per Rostad, a robust and wonderfully virtuosic part of this quartet, they moved on to playfully manipulate the polka that followed, marked by the vigorous support that second violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson had provided throughout the concert. The largo floated on a luminescent interpretation while the finale, so emotionally pleasurable in intent, held fertile pauses amid the ethnic musical landscape.   The group was called back for an encore, Astor Piazzolla's "Four, for tango." Exploding into a slicing array of glissandi and rock-hard accents, it was an example of luscious, edge-of-your-seat music-making that was nothing short of brilliant.