I went to Zankel Hall to hear the St. Lawrence String Quartet; the program was potentially a great one, featuring a Haydn quartet from the inventive Op. 20, Beethoven's late Op 131, and the New York premiere of a new quartet by John Adams.
The Adams work was confounding; the first movement takes two short phrases from Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op. 110, and develops a whole movement out them. To begin with, it is fascinating. We hear the very recognizable fragments repeated endlessly and subjected to all kinds of rhythmic and harmonic transformations. Sometimes we are in a somewhat Beethovenian landscape, and other times we are in recognizable Adams territory, with gradually shifting and disjunct rhythms and clashing harmonies. It builds to an energetic climax. The second movement does very similar things with a vert small fragment from the Diabelli variations, starting slow and building up to a dense and energetic climax. But at the end, I was thinking, so what was that all about? Adams, to my ears, never really transcends the initial notion of using the Beethoven motives; the piece feels very uncomfortably in between the two worlds. Is he channelling Beethoven? Emulating him? Commenting on him? Who knows? Maybe that's the point?
Or maybe the quartet's performance had something to do with it. For the truth of the matter is that, starting from the opening Haydn quartet, I really didn't like the quartet's style of playing, which emphasized intensity over almost anything else. There was little in the way of ensemble balance, phrasing, and sensitive interaction between the players. The first violinist was consistently and flamboyantly louder than the other players, and the violist was played constantly without any sense of expression at all. These tendencies really took a toll on the Beethoven; one of the great masterpieces of chamber music, it was pretty much slaughtered by the end, with ragged ensemble work and intonation messing up the whole thing. Just because you play loud and fast doesn't mean that the music is more intense. I was not happy.
We went to Juillard to hear Axiom, a student contemporary music ensemble, play pieces by Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, and Oliver Knussen (AKA British prodigy composers of the 1980's). The two Adès pieces were early ones; "Catch", and "The Origins of the Harp". They were both inventive and compelling, particularly "The Origins of the Harp" (which has no harp in it; the title refers to a 19th century painting. )
The piece is something of a super clarinet concertino, with a solo clarinet and two supporting clarinets (of different sizes) having the main solo line. The most exciting piece, though, was George Benjamin's "Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra". The dry title conceals the fact that these are extremely dramatic pieces. The first begins with a kind of tone color melody which brought Webern's "Ricercar" to mind, and gradually adds contrapuntal complexity. The last piece was almost Bergian in its expressive quality. Benjamin works with complex and intricate musical ideas, but, at the same time, there is a clear sense of expression, and he always creates unique and special tone colors. In this case, a euphonium solo and two sets of gongs, stage left and stage right were among the sonic highlights. (We heard a lot of George Benjamin last summer at the Mostly Mozart Festival. I am trying to write something about what we heard. He is probably my favorite contemporary composer right now.)
My faith in string quartets was restored by hearing a performance by the Michelangelo Quartet. This quartet features violinists from Romania and Russia, a cellist from Sweden, and a violist from Japan. (What language do they speak in rehearsals?) Like every other quartet concert I have heard lately, they opened with a Haydn quartet, in this case the very late Op. 77, # 1. The performance was excellent, and the adagio sounded almost Schubertian at times. The concert closed with magnificent performance of Beethoven's Op. 59, #2. The slow movement was as sublimely beautiful as anything I have heard in years. The quartet played with great subtlety in timbre and phrasing, and wonderfully judicious use of vibrato. In between was Shostakovich's Quartet #3. I am woefully ignorant of Shostakovich's music, having come of age in the musical era was Shostakovich was distinctly out of fashion, so I can't say too much. But my first impressions are not favorable. His mode of expression does not sit well with me; the alternations of ironic, sardonic, and pathetic or whatever don't work to my ears. But I will reserve judgement until I hear more.
