Pacifica Quartet dazzles concert audience March 2000 By Doug Wyatt Ah, togetherness. The members of the Pacifica Quartet, playing Thursday night as part of Savannah Onstage's Jepson Associates series, seemed part of one soul. These guys were great. The quartet ranged across several centuries in their program, starting off with Beethoven's early "Quartet in C minor, Op. 18/4." The Pacifica made the music alive, playing with both poise and suppleness. The group's balance is clear and the musicians' tempos are consistent, as if they're all moving effortlessly within the same, organic sense of time. The ensemble's skill was immediately obvious, with the members deftly trading phrases and spinning out melodies from the agitated opening movement through to the whizbang finale. And then for something completely different. Gyorgi Ligeti's "String Quartet No. 1, Metamorphoses nocturnes" is, at times, a whirligig of a thing, dazzling us, ceaselessly transforming like fireworks suddenly flashing across a darkened sky. At other moments, it conveys a sense of otherworldy melancholy. The quartet, clearly intimate with the work, at once caught its buzzing, abrasive energy and the fluidity lurking beneath. The piece's complex sonorities and shifting hues could easily dissolve into grating mush; the Pacifica made it into exciting, innovative music. After intermission, the group performed Dvorak's "Quartet in G major, Op. 106." As the appreciative crowd at Christ Church anticipated by then, the musician's played it surpassingly well, allowing the composer's rich melodies to take wing and the piece's emotions to swell. The audience gave a rousing, well-deserved ovation at the end.