The Montreal International String Quartet Academy runs through Saturday, Aug. 23, and it offers invited quartets an intense session of public and private classes, and concerts. Attending the latter is always a lesson in contrasts, and Thursday night began with a walloping of Haydn’s masterful String Quartet Op. 76 No. 1 that ranks among the ugliest I’ve heard.
The American quartet Excelsa must have a background in that country’s style of law enforcement.