Strings

Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Flute, New York, Strings

Buffalo Philharmonic honors Lukas Foss @ 100 at Carnegie

Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss

Buffalo Philharmonic and its music director JoAnn Falletta brought their considerable world class talent downstate to Carnegie Hall on Monday. The hall was full, despite persistent rain and the fact that the program was entirely dedicated to a composer whose name and music are not familiar to the casual music fan.

The celebrated composer and conductor Lukas Foss (1922-2009) put his indelible stamp on Buffalo when he was music director of the Philharmonic, 1963 – 1971. With programming that included a healthy dose of new music, he paved the way for a taste for contemporary works in Buffalo. He made a deep impression on JoAnn Falletta, whose association with him goes back to Milwaukee Symphony where she was his assistant conductor in the 1980s. It’s evident from the way Falletta talks about – and performs – Lukas Foss, that she reveres the man and his music.

This year, the centennial of his birth, brought some of his brilliant and neglected works to the stage, five of which were featured this evening. The ensemble performed the music as if it were in their DNA, although, as I later learned, the works were new to these players.

JoAnn Falletta
JoAnn Falletta (credit David Adam Beloff)

The program, while full of collaborative performers, allowed the Buffalo Philharmonic to shine on its own in the first and last pieces on the program. Foss said of the first work on the program, Ode, that it represented “crisis, war and, ulti­mately, ‘faith.’” It was appropriately heavy and ominous with BPO’s brass shining through with impressively dense chords.

BPO’s concert master, Nikki Chooi, took center stage as soloist for Three American Pieces, a work which seemed to shout “Americana!” Chooi’s warm tone and heartfelt playing were evident throughout.  In fast passages, Chooi showed off his virtuosity as his bow bounced rapidly on the strings, a spiccato effect. Elements of jazz and country fiddling were woven into the composition; Chooi made the most of each of these styles, supported by various orchestra soloists, notably William Amsel’s jaunty clarinet.

The flutist Amy Porter was featured in Renaissance Concerto, a composition commissioned by the BPO in 1986 for the flutist Carol Wincenc. Foss called it a “lov­ing handshake across the centuries,” and in the process of writing the work, tapped Falletta to help gather lute songs for his inspiration. The orchestra navigated fast riffs in excellent intonation, supporting the soloist. Foss cleverly plays with rhythms, delaying a beat to create a jagged rhythm in the second movement. In the third movement, the soloist’s portamento pitch slides affirm the work’s modernism; a passage which was echoed by principal flutist Christine Lynn Bailey with a nicely matched tone. Porter navigated the extended techniques with aplomb, generating percussive sounds meshing in duet with tambourine. With a dramatic flair, Porter inched her way off the stage as she played the final measures.

 

BPO was joined by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Downtown Voices, for Psalms, a work written in 1956. Tenor Stephen Sands (who is also Downtown Voices director), and soprano Sonya Headlam delivered solos that were spot on and especially moving; beautifully punctuated by harp, tympani and strings. Fugal passages were well-executed, and, with Falletta’s encouragement and direction, never overpowering. The singers had the spotlight to themselves for Alleluia by Foss’s teacher Randall Thompson, an a cappella work that was stunningly gorgeous and reverently performed.

Symphony No. 1, written in 1944, was the earliest work on the program. Textures in the orchestration evoked the sound and style of Copland, mixed with Bernstein, mixed with Hindemith; a sound parallel to the “midcentury modern” style of architecture and furniture. The third movement displayed an appropriate amount of swing, and each of the principal string players were radiant in their respective solo passages in the final movement.

The Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall was a fitting tribute to this under-recognized American composer. Next week, Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic head to the recording studio, and an album of the entire program will be released by Naxos next year.

by Gail Wein
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Flute, Strings

Spektral Quartet – Experiments in Living

Spektral Quartet

Clara Lyon (violin), Maeve Feinberg (violin),

Doyle Armbrust (viola), Russell Rolen (cello)

Experiments in Living

New Focus Records (digital release)

The Spektral Quartet takes advantage of the open-ended playing time of a digital release to create effectively a double album for their latest recording, Experiments in Living. While double albums often suffer from a bit of flab, this one doesn’t have an extraneous moment. It is a well curated release that attends to meaning making in contemporary music with a spirit that is both historically informed and deeply of this moment.

A clever extra-musical addition to the project is a group of Tarot cards that allow the listener to ‘choose their own adventure,’ making their way through the various pieces in different orderings. These are made by the artist/musician øjeRum. The tarot cards may be seen on the album’s site. 

It might seem strange to begin an album of 20/21 music with Johannes Brahms’s String Quartet Op. 51, no. 1  in  C-minor (1873). However, Arnold Schoenberg’s article “Brahms as Progressive”  makes the connection between the two composers clear. It also demonstrates Spektral’s comfort in the standard repertoire. They give an energetic reading of the quartet with clear delineation of its thematic transformations, a Brahms hallmark. 

Schoenberg is represented by his Third String Quartet (1927). His first quartet to use 12-tone procedures, it gets less love in the literature than the oft-analyzed combinatorics of the composer’s Fourth String Quartet, but its expressive bite still retains vitality over ninety years later. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet (1931), an under-heralded masterpiece of the 20th century, receives one of the best recordings yet on disc, its expressive dissonant counterpoint rendered with biting vividness.

Sam Pluta’s Flow State/Joy State is filled with flurries of glissandos, microtones, and harmonics to create a thoroughly contemporary sound world punctuated by dissonant verticals. One of Pluta’s most memorable gestures employs multiple glissandos to gradually make a chord cohere, only to have subsequent music skitter away. Charmaine Lee’s Spinals incorporates her own voice, replete with lip trills and sprechstimme that are imitated by string pizzicato and, again, glissandos. 

Spektral is joined by flutist Claire Chase on Anthony Cheung’s “Real Book of Fake Tunes,” which combines all manner of effects for Chase with jazzy snips of melody and writing for quartet that is somewhat reminiscent of the techniques found in the Schoenberg, but with a less pervasively dissonant palette. Cheung’s writing for instruments is always elegantly wrought, and Chase and Spektral undertake an excellent collaboration. One could imagine an entire album for this quintet being an engaging listen.  

The recording’s title track is George Lewis’s String Quartet 1.5; he wrote a prior piece utilizing quartet but considers this his first large-scale work in the genre. Many of the techniques on display in Pluta’s piece play a role here as well. Lewis adds to these skittering gestures, glissandos, and microtones the frequent use of various levels of bow pressure, including extreme bow pressure in which noise is more present than pitch. The latter crunchy sounds provide rhythmic weight and accentuation that offsets the sliding tones. Dovetailing glissandos create a blurring effect in which harmonic fields morph seamlessly. The formal design of the piece is intricate yet well-balanced. More string quartets, labeled 2.5 and 3.5, are further contributions by Lewis to the genre. One hopes that Spektral will take them up as well – their playing of 1.5 is most persuasive.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Just Intonation, Los Angeles, Strings

Music of Ben Johnston in Pasadena

On Friday, March 15, 2019 the Lyris Quartet and the Kepler Viol Quartet joined forces at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center for an evening of the music of Ben Johnston. The concert was produced by Microfest and featured two of Johnston’s well known string quartets, as well as two rarely performed works. The Kepler Viol Quartet was on hand for the pre-concert talk to demonstrate the bass, tenor and treble viola da gambas used in Fugue for Viols, one of the concert pieces. The intricacies of viol construction, tuning, vibrato, intonation and bowing were explained to a surprisingly knowledgeable and engaged audience. The viola da gamba in the history of tuning was discussed and details of how Johnston re-purposed the fretting for just intonation were also covered. Ben Johnston, who studied with Darius Milhaud, Harry Partch and John Cage, was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters last year. At 93 years of age, Johnston may be one of our most influential but least familiar composers. His birthday falls on March 15, making this concert the perfect occasion to celebrate his music.

The first piece on the concert program was String Quartet #4, “Amazing Grace” (1973), performed by the Lyris Quartet. This is probably Johnston’s best known work and consists of a series of seven variations on the familiar hymn, all in different forms of just intonation. The opening section is the cantus firmus, in magnificent full harmony, with a rich and textured feel. Other variations featured expressive counterpoint, wistful introspection, and at times a certain stridency. The hymn tune appears just often enough to keep the audience fully connected. The ensemble playing by the Lyris Quartet was strong throughout, and also included striking solos from the violin and viola. The final variations combined complex passages with a pleasingly dense texture that was abetted by the unconventional harmony. Amazing Grace is perhaps the most over-exposed hymn of our time yet String Quartet #4 brings a vibrant new freshness to this old standard.

Duo for Two Violins (1978) was next, performed by Alyssa Park and Shalini Vijayan of the Lyris Quartet. John Schneider’s helpful program notes describe this piece as fulfilling “…one of the composer’s hidden agendas: to explore what would have happened to the traditional forms and language of Western music if the pure intervals of the Renaissance had not been abandoned.” Accordingly, Duo for Two Violins consists three movements – a fugue, an aria and toccata – lifted directly from Baroque sensibility. “Fuga”, the first movement, was anchored in the familiar formal structure, but the harmonies gave this a refreshingly modern feel. The second movement, “Aria” opened with a soft scratching sound in one violin and a quietly mournful melody underneath. The interplay between parts and the harmony produced by this combination was very alluring and the delicate playing only added to the overall charm. “Toccata” finished out the piece, and the busy opening of this movement was a nice contrast, providing an appealing bit of complexity and bounce in an uptempo finale. Duo for Two Violins is an elegant re-imagining of historical forms and tuning practice that gives new insight into the music history that might have been.

The Kepler Viol Quartet took the stage for Fugue for Viols (1991) and began the lengthy tuning protocol for the bass, treble and two tenor viola da gambas that make up the ensemble. According to the program notes “…Fugue for Viols has only ever been performed at a few early music concerts in the Midwest in the years that followed its composition…” Originally written for George Hunter, an early music colleague of Johnston’s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, the structure of the piece is squarely in the traditional fugal format. The subject begins in the bass and proceeds to the treble and tenors in the usual way. The audience could hear immediately that the viola da gamba quartet is a smaller and more intimate musical experience. The dark coloring in the bass added a sense of the ancient while the just intonation harmonies were warm and woody to the ear. The timbre of the viols and the unusual chords were at the same time an old curiosity and a new experience. The playing was clean, and the Kepler Quartet brought new life to the old instruments in a most satisfactory way. Fugue for Viols is an intriguing update to the rarely heard viola da gamba quartet, at once familiar and innovative.

The final work on the program was String Quartet #9 (1988), whose four movements further explored Johnson’s interest in recreating classical forms set free from equal temperament. “Strong, calm, slow”, the opening movement, is just that, with sturdy chords rising upward with a solid and settled optimism. The tutti playing was rich and full, adding to the lovely harmony. The second movement, “Fast, elated”, featured rapid phrases in the violins and viola with an appealing counter melody running through the cello. The strong, purposeful feel was supplied by a fine tutti ensemble. Always in motion, there were moments of stridency, especially with the pizzicato phrases in the cello. “Slow, expressive”, the third movement, was full of warm four-part harmony with a deep bass line adding to the sense of calm and comfort. A handsome violin solo was heard, accompanied by moving lines in the second violin and viola along with pizzicato phrasing in the cello. The playing here was precise and elegantly expressive. “Vigorous and defiant”. the final movement, opened with a strong, declarative statement that mixed in a bit of tension. Fast moving phrases in the upper strings crested to a defiant statement, then began again with a strong pulse and rapid tutti ensemble. The playing was exquisitely tight, with the quartet on a solid footing despite the fast tempo and unconventional pitches scattered through the passages. All of this built up to a big finish that was received with extended applause from an appreciative audience. String Quartet #9 is a masterful construction based on old forms while using new musical materials, brilliantly performed by the Lyris Quartet.

by Paul Muller
Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Strings, viola, Violin

Ljova in Princeton

Lev_Ljova_Zhurbin-photo_by_Mark_Gurevich-20160807-IMG_6331-Edit-red_background_hat-sm
Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin. Photo: Mark Gurevich.

“Sorry About the Mess – Portraits in Music:”

Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin and Friends

Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University

February 27, 2018

Sequenza21.com

By Christian Carey

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY – Violist and composer Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin has been a guest artist this semester at Princeton University’s Atelier. The special courses in this program feature guest artists in interdisciplinary collaboration: student participants can “mirror” or “shadow” their work. Zhurbin’s course, “Grandma’s Russian Painting: Puppetry and Music,” also involves puppeteer Basil Twist.

As part of his residency, on Tuesday, February 27th Zhurbin gave a composer/performer portrait concert. Held in The Forum, downstairs in the Lewis Center for the Arts, the event’s vibe was casual; the intensity of the actual performances was anything but.

The core ensemble for the concert was The Secret String Quartet: Zhurbin with violinists Cornelius Dufallo and Jennifer Choi, and cellist Yves Dharamraj. They presented the violist’s first string quartet, “Culai,” an homage to one of the violinists in the Gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks. Boldly polystylistic and exquisitely well scored, it is a formidably challenging piece that hybridizes classical and folk music. All the members of the Secret Quartet amply demonstrated an affinity for the various playing styles contained in the piece. It is rare to hear such a seamless performance of demanding and versatile music.

Secret Quartet was joined by Vasko Dukovski for “Clarinet Quintet: The Refugee,” a poignant work that references the current refugee crisis in the United States and elsewhere. Zhurbin showed a depth of feeling in this piece with corresponding sensitivity to scoring and pacing. It equaled the quartet’s polished performance standard.

Much more music was on offer. A solo with loops provided an impressive sequence of post-minimal layering. Arrangements of repertoire from Zhurbin’s other ensemble, Ljova and the Kontraband, as well as a set of Yiddish and Russian folk songs, added vocalist Inna Barmash and accordionist Patrick Farrell to the assembled musicians. Both are tremendously talented exponents of Eastern European folk music who supplied performances that encompassed lilting inflections and, where required, burning intensity. An excellent concert; one looks forward to what Zhurbin’s collaboration with Twist will yield.

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Chamber Music, File Under?, Recordings, Strings

Danish String Quartet – Last Leaf

Last Leaf

Danish String Quartet

ECM Records CD

 

The Danish String Quartet is best known for their insightful interpretations of classical and contemporary repertoire. For instance, a 2016 CD for ECM Records presented early works by Ades, Norgard, and Abrahamsen to widespread acclaim. However, back in 2014, the quartet had a best seller on Da Capo, Wood Works, that consisted of arrangements by its members of Scandinavian folk tunes. In 2017 they released Last Leaf, another album of these arrangements and original compositions for ECM.

 

Last Leaf is in many ways even more successful than Wood Works. The arrangements by the Danish String Quartet’s various members are more sure-footed and varied in ensemble deployments. ECM’s sonics are, as usual, top notch, and the space chosen for the recording, a Danish museum, provides exemplary chamber acoustics. In addition, the group has combined classical and folk dances in adroit ways in several places. One of the most fetching and memorable of these is “Nadja’s Waltz” by cellist  Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin. Another is “Shine No More,” a reel-like tune by violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen. “Polska from Dorotea,” an arrangement by the full quartet is a wonderful blend of contrapuntal writing and boisterous dance music. Sumptuous sonorities populate the ballad-like “Now Found is the Forest of Roses,” a poignant album closer.

 

Often, string quartets rely on their creativity to provide impetus for interpretation. It is gratifying hear a group that is as interested in the acts of creating arrangements and compositions as it is in providing stalwart renditions of preexisting music. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Guitar, Strings, Twentieth Century Composer

Best Chamber Recording 2017

Dark Queen Mantra

 

Terry Riley and Stefano Scodanibbio

The Dark Queen Mantra

Del Sol String Quartet; Gyan Riley, guitar

Sono Luminus

 

On this Sono Luminus CD, Terry Riley’s chamber works are superlatively performed by Del Sol String Quartet. Joined on the title piece by the composer’s son, guitarist Gyan Riley, the group navigates an array of rhythms, many of Spanish origin. Movement titles evoke the Basque region Vizcaino and the paintings of Goya. The final, eponymous, movement builds to an intense conclusion; Gyan Riley incorporates distortion and high volume, matching the whirling dance of the quartet in a rock-inflected finale.

 

Stefano Scodanibbio, who died in 2012, was a friend to both Rileys. Diamond Fiddle Language (Wergo, 2005), his collaboration with Terry Riley, is a standout in both of their respective catalogues. After his passing, Gyan Riley presented a memorial concert of Scodanibio’s music at New York’s The Stone. He invited Del Sol to play the composer’s Mas Lugares ( su Madrigales di Monteverdi), a work they have since made their own. A five-movement homage to the early Baroque master, Scodanibbio takes his source material on all sorts of fascinating of twists and turns. A virtuoso bass-player himself, Scodanibbio wrote prolifically and eloquently for strings. Channeling and transforming early music was only one aspect of his work – he was well known for extended techniques and as a formidable improviser. This is reflected in Mas Lugares … : The piece isn’t a neoclassical take on its source material. Instead, it is a persuasive update with considerable refashioning.

 

Originally premiered by Kronos Quartet, The Wheel and Mythic Birds Waltz is more of a minimalist affair than The Dark Queen Mantra. That said, few of Terry Riley’s pieces for quartet are unadulterated minimalism – apart from In C, his is a polyglot musical language. There are a considerable number of extended chords, folk-like melodies, and jazz-inflected wrinkles amid the repetitions. As such, the piece pairs well with the other two on the CD, and serves as a fitting closer.

The Dark Queen Mantra is Sequenza 21’s Best Chamber Recording 2017.

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Strings

Quartet X3 at Disney Hall

Calder5On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 the first Green Umbrella Series concert of the season featured three Los Angeles-based string quartets: Calder Quartet, Formalist Quartet and the Lyris Quartet. Disney Hall was mostly full for the event, evidence of the strong following contemporary music has attracted by this concert series over the years. The music for the evening spanned works by John Cage and Christian Wolff to two world premieres and LA Philharmonic commissions from John Luther Adams and Tristan Perich.

First up was the Formalist Quartet performing Music for Marcel Duchamp by John Cage. Originally written for prepared piano, this piece was arranged for string quartet by Eric Byers, cellist for the Calder Quartet. This opened with a flurry of pizzicato figures that nicely approximated the expected percussive jaggedness of a prepared piano. These irregular rhythms were soon supported with a soft, soothing undertone from the cello. This made for a good contrast and the piece took on an exotic, almost Asian feel. Some sharp rapping on the wooden parts of the string instruments along with some new pizzicato reinstated the rhythmic to prominence and also added a bit of mystery to the mix. Rhythmic textures alternated with smoother sections as the piece progressed. As played by a string quartet this new Byers arrangement of Music for Marcel Duchamp came across as finely drawn and delicate, with a quiet, contained feel – especially in the comparatively vast Disney Hall performance space.

The Calder Quartet followed with Edges by Christian Wolff, arranged by Chiara Giovando. This began with a high, thin sound in the violins followed by a solid pizzicato thump in the cello. More high, stressed sounds followed, adding a palpable tension. At times there were very soft – almost inaudible – sounds that focused the listener’s attention. At other times there were fast and furious runs full of thunder and drama, and at still other times slower, more harmonious stretches. Edges was notated by Wolff using a graphical score and this was skillfully interpreted for strings by Chiara Giovando. This outcome was successful in that there were a wide variety of individual textures and dynamics present that, combined with the precise playing of the Calder Quartet, made for a highly detailed and intricate experience taking the listener beyond the normal boundaries of string quartet music.

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by Paul Muller
Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Strings

Los Angeles Composers Collective Concert in Chinatown

newstrings2On Sunday, May 25, 2014 the Los Angeles Composers Collective presented New Strings a concert that featured new works by nine different composers and performed by the Fiato Quartet. The venue was Human Resources, a converted movie theater in historic Chinatown and although the performance space is a work in progress, the audience was seated comfortably. The acoustics in this new space were adequate – a dryer environment might have been better to bring out the finer details – but this did not affect the performance.

The concert began with String Quartet 1 by Jon Brenner and this commenced with a series of fast, precisely played eighth notes that immediately assumed a familiar minimalist texture. This developed a nice groove with effective harmonies and solid counterpoint. As the piece progressed, a section with lower dynamics – dominated by the cello – produced a more introspective feel despite the busyness. Those sequences where there was dynamic contrast and sustained tones in one or more parts were particularly effective. Towards the end of the piece the tempo slowed a bit and a pleasing theme emerged that was passed around among the players. This is music that is always going somewhere; at times it is strident but never out of control and the groove was always carefully maintained. Informed by Jon Brenner’s background in early music, String Quartet 1 is a strongly minimalist piece with a lot of moving parts that work admirably together.

Thoughts on Spring followed, by Alicia Byer. This begins with a series of long, slow notes in the violins, followed by the viola and cello. Trills appear, and with a sustained tone continuing in the viola there is the unmistakable feeling of an awakening.  A slow melody is heard for a time and then – after a beat or two of silence – fast trills in the viola mark the start of a stronger, more animated section. As the volume and tempo increase there is a feeling of incipient  undeniability, especially strong in the lower strings, like the emergence of the first flower shoots of spring. Thoughts on Spring is just that, and this music artfully describes the yearly process of natural renewal.

At the Warren by Carlos Carlos was next and this is a piece that is unashamedly about rabbits. Full of variously bouncing pizzicato or tremolo sounds – and often with a dance-like feel – At the Warren nicely captures the energy and movement of rabbits in the wild. At times this piece turns smoothly pastoral and was reminiscent of early 20th century English music. There was a section that quietly conveyed stealth and careful movement and other passages that expressed a more lighthearted feeling or a sense of purposeful journey. The book Watership Down came to mind. At the Warren is not abstract or difficult music, but it clearly and convincingly sketches out its subject matter.

Miniature for String Quartet No. 6 by Gregory Lenczycki followed. This began with a series of strong quarter notes that gave off an edgy feel that only increased as the rhythms became syncopated. As the piece proceeded the texture turned smoothly melodic, providing a good contrast with the opening passages. Further along there was a return to the strident rhythms of the opening and a disconnected melody emerged that enhanced the building sense of tension. The barely cohesive structure at the conclusion completes the feeling of uncertainty that characterizes this piece and makes it an interesting sojourn.

The first half of the concert concluded with Four Impressions by Nicholas White. The first of the four sections was dominated by low trills in the violin, joined by a faster repeating line in the viola. This combination generated a sense of mystery and anxiety while the second section evoked a more introspective feel with lush chords, high sustained pitches and triplets in the viola. This trailed off agreeably leaving a nostalgic afterglow. The third section continued the warm, expressive feelings with a series of slow chords and some lovely harmonies. The final section provided a fine contrast, full of fast passages in the upper strings that gave a strident and declarative feel to the overall texture. This turned slightly discordant at times, increasing the strongly purposeful feel. Some combinations of notes sounded for all the world like a muted trumpet – adding another interesting facet to this nicely balanced work.

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by Paul Muller
Austin, Cello, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Houston, Strings

Grandchildren of Minimalism: The Miró Quartet’s Joshua Gindele On Playing Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5

(The Miró Quartet)

(Houston, TX) As a way of acknowledging the impact composers such as Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass made on him in his formative years, composer John Zorn has described himself as a “child of minimalism” and said that the influence of the minimalist school “is somewhere in almost everything I do.”

Cellist Joshua Gindele, a founding member of the Austin-based Miró Quartet, probably wouldn’t describe himself as a child or even a grandchild of minimalism, since Glass’s repertoire, as well as the repertoire of several of the composers we’ve come to associate with the “M” word, has since found a home among the standards that any self-respecting classical chamber ensemble plays. Along with performing traditional string quartet music, including works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert, the Miró Quartet has commissioned and performed several new works by composers, including Brent Michael Davids, Chan Ka Nin, Leonardo Balada, and Gunter Schuller. On Tuesday, September 17, 7:30 PM at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, the Quartet performs a program of works by Schubert and Beethoven as well as Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5.

Although Glass is still finding ways to surprise listeners and reboot the very musical language he began articulating back in 1966 with  (more…)

by Chris Becker
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Recordings, Strings

Fellowship of the Strings

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Since no one listens to contemporary classical music, and it doesn’t get put on concert programs, to have a new work not only recorded but recorded again, by different musicians, is an impossible dream. But that’s what happens when you’re John Adams, America’s leading composer. And deservedly so, because he’s a deeply skilled and intelligent composer with serious things to say and the aesthetic to say them clearly, expressively and winningly without pandering to or patronizing his audience.

But he is a busy man, and some of his recent work, like Absolute Jest and The Gospel According to the Other Mary seems more assembled from parts of pieces he (or, in the case of the former, Beethoven) has already made than thought through and composed. That’s been particulary frustrating, since his String Quartet, which I saw premiered in 2009, is not only a terrific piece but one that seemed to have opened the door to a new, late style.

The St. Lawrence Quartet was the original dedicatee, the ensemble that played it in public and recorded it first. Their intense, nervous energy was exactly right for the sinewy, restless music. Now they’ve been followed by the Attacca Quartet, with a Fellow Traveller, a new CD of Adam’s complete works for String Quartet. Their manner with the piece is very different, and that’s a strength of the recording that also serves the quality of the composition.

What is most interesting about the String Quartet is how Adams, who is fundamentally a Neo-Romantic composer with a great facility for tension, release and powerful expression, uses repetition to create a sensation of agitation, but this time without much resolution. At the Attacca’s enjoyable CD release performance at (le) poisson rouge, Adams spoke about harmony and how he believes that a facility for it is necessary for composers. But the Quartet is one of his least harmonically rich pieces, it subtly reaches back to Minimalist experiments like “Christian Zeal and Activity.” It’s also more closely related to Beethoven, who was of course a magnificent harmonist but whose secret power was always rhythm, especially building and releasing tension by moving the downbeat around to different parts of measures while maintaining the same meter.

That’s what Adams does in the Quartet, plays around with the rhythmic possibilities of short phrases, different lengths, different pulses. There’s a lot of chattering interplay that add to the overall dynamism and the whole builds to an evocative and enigmatic payoff. The Attacca plays this with less muscular vigor than the Borromeo but with more thoughtfulness, more introversion, and so bring out the internal mysteries of the music, and the swing a little bit more. They also are a more lyrical ensemble, and they pay more attention to phrasing than attack and articulation, and the results are not only expressive but place the music directly in the long history of Western classical music. I can hear the Haydn and Beethoven that is part of their memories.

That approach also pays off in John’s Book of Alleged Dances, which is both amusing in intent and seriously well-made. This is extroverted music, and the Attacca plays it that way, which adds to the impression that larger piece gives. Dances is not first-rate Adams, but especially in person, the Attacca give it a first-rate performance.

by George Grella