Trying to illuminate
one art form by combining it with another carries the risk of diminishing
both, but when imaginative musicians like the Emerson Quartet—violinists
Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist
David Finckel—embark on such an undertaking, the result is
always rewarding. Long known for its innovative, adventurous programming,
the group is giving two concerts at Carnegie Hall—unfortunately
not an ideal place for chamber music—called Text/Subtext and
exploring the relationship between music and narrative. A guest
singer contributes the literary element.
The first program, on February 8, was permeated by an inexorable
sense of doom, though in Czech composer Bedrich Smetana's autobiographical
Quartet No. 1 in E minor, "From My Life," tragedy does
not strike until the end. The first movement depicts the composer's
youthful hope and joy; the Scherzo is a partly robust, partly lilting
peasant dance, the slow movement an ecstatic, romantic love song.
The Finale begins rambunctiously, but is interrupted by a shrill
harmonic representing the persistent high-pitched sound in his ear
that presaged the onset of his deafness. An anguished, heart-breaking
fragment from itsfirst movement ends the piece in hopeless despair.
Baritone Thomas Hampson joined the Quartet for Samuel Barber's "Dover
Beach," set to Matthew Arnold's famous 1867 poem about isolation
and loss of faith. Its somber, disillusioned world-view seems as
apt in our day as in his. Though composed when Barber was only 20,
the music reflects the poet’s bitter, resigned weariness admirably.
The Emerson closed the program with Franz Schubert's great Quartet
in D minor, D. 810, "Death and the Maiden." Written in
the knowledge of his fatal illness, the piece seems haunted by forebodings
of death and has a desperate, dramatic intensity. The dark, mournful
slow movement is a set of variations on the song of the same name;
they go from subdued anguish to passionate protest and calm serenity,
finally sinking back in resignation. To introduce it, Hampson, accompanied
by pianist Craig Rutenberg, sang "Death and the Maiden,"
preceded by two songs in which Death is welcomed as a merciful deliverer
from suffering: "The Youth and Death," and "Gravedigger's
Homesickness."
The concert, despite its interesting conception, was not entirely
successful. The Emerson has been playing standing up recently (the
cellist sits on a small platform), probably for greater ease and
freedom of movement. It looks a bit strange, but more importantly,
it seemed to affect the balance in Carnegie Hall's large space.
The texture was blurred, vague, and muddy; the violist, turning
toward the audience, sounded disproportionately prominent; the violinists,
turning toward each other, and the cellist, sitting too far back,
were often inaudible. The playing, though commanding as always,
seemed at times uncomfortable, emotionally distant, and uninvolved.
The second and final concert in the Text/Subtext series, on May
4 and also at Carnegie Hall, features Leos Janácek's Quartet
No. 1, "Kreutzer Sonata," Felix Mendelssohn's Quartet
No. 2, and the song "Is it True?" on which it is based.
Here, and in the world premiere of a work for soprano and string
quartet by André Previn, the singer is soprano Barbara Bonney.
—Edith
Eisler
photo
by Andrew Eccles
Miró Quartet at Lincoln Center,
Alice Tully Hall
Sporting a quartet of instruments built especially for the players
by French luthier Frank Ravatin, the Miró Quartet took the
stage on February 12 for a program whose centerpiece was a contrast
with a distinctly American theme: Antonin Dvorák's "American"
quartet, a Czech composer's idea of what the music of the States
ought to sound like, against George Crumb's Black Angels—an
offering from a true "American" composer written with
overtones of the Vietnam War.
But, rather oddly, the Miró (violinists Daniel Ching and
Sandy Yamamoto, violist John Largess, and cellist Joshua Gindele)
chose to open with Franz Schubert's one-movement minimasterpiece
Quartettsatz—a strange choice, considering the programmatic
bent. Not to say the Miró didn't play well—quite the
opposite: The quartet's energy and communication was spot on, and
it gave the players an opportunity to show the true power and depth
of their instruments. New Yorkers had the opportunity to see the
Emerson Quartet a few nights before in comparison: While the Emerson
achieves a separate-but-equal tone—a group of soloists playing
with excellent ensemble—the Miró sounds like one large
string instrument with a seemingly endless variety of tone and huge
depth.
Its reading of the Dvorák bristled with distinctly "American"
energy, laying into the borrowed "negro" folk tunes soulfully
but without schmaltz; the finale showed the quartet at its most
powerful, a collective single rather than a separated four.
Rather than just crash into Black Angels without explanation, Largess
came out with an articulate explanation, sans the usual this-is-difficult-but-bear-with-it
apologia. Instead, he put forth the notion that this was just the
place to play such a piece—rather than have it ghettoized
on a concert devoted to new music, this piece should stand as a
repertoire staple. He also offered the same prayer that many throughout
the world had: that the work's Vietnam War associations would not
make the performance all-too relevant as the world teeters on a
new conflict. (The quartet also performed Black Angels at Kent State
in Ohio, site of an infamous 1970 shooting of student demonstrators
by National Guard troops. And the Miró has recorded the work
for release in June on the Bridge label's Complete George Crumb
Edition, Vol. 7.)
The performance was as articulate and heartfelt as the speech. Those
who did not know this piece (which is, like much of Crumb's music,
fiercely challenging, using all manner of extended techniques) were
introduced to an underplayed work performed at top form. Fans were
undoubtedly delighted with the clean, serious, as-good-as-it-gets
performance. There is much to this piece, with its 13 separate movements
(program viewing was heartily encouraged) and sections that utilize
not only the string instruments in all manner of ways (knocked,
plucked, harmonics bowed, and everything amplified) but singing,
extra percussion, and glasses full of water played with beaters
and bows. The sections intended to sound like swarming insects were
terrifying; the bits intended to sound like wheezy folk tunes were
moving and even sweet. It all coalesced into an exquisite, flawless
reading, as scary as it was beautiful.
Walkouts aside (and there were some obvious ones, departing slowly
with smug expression from front row center) the audience deservingly
went mad for the Mirós. Several well-earned bows later, the
players exited, undoubtedly to go on to even more amazing things
in the future.
—Daniel Felsenfeld
photo
by Christian Steiner
