Way More Exciting Than Monday Night Football
Just back from the campus recital hall, where the Fine Arts Quartet performed Arriaga, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky. The concert was on a chamber music series that (shudder) you actually have to pay a normal price for, but a coworker/friend (recent arrival at the Press) is a family friend of the quartet, through her father, who's a professor & widely performing concert pianist; so I got to attend a concert on a comp ticket for the first time in something like 20 months.
The Fine Arts Quartet is what I would describe as an "old school" ensemble, though when I ran that by my friend she corrected me to "Russian school," which, okay, is probably more accurate. By "old school" I mean they play with a savory tone and lyrical but measured expressiveness that evokes old LP records playing through big fabric-fronted wooden speakers by the stereo cabinet. Visually they are definitely old school, being four oldish tuxedo-wearing men who play with not much unnecessary physical movement. The music produced has the warmth and authority of a firm handshake.
Shostakovich's Quartet No. 1 was fantastic. Hearing it from an ensemble with this aesthetic made the performance sound authoritative, like this is exactly the sound Shostakovich had in mind when he wrote it -- accommodating that lyrical strength, playing a bit with textures and tone colors. (The quartet's players are all Russian-Jewish, which I'm sure is steering my impression towards "authoritative," too, even if that's a bit glib.) I like this piece a lot -- it's not freighted nearly the same way most of Shostakovich's better-known quartets are, but it's fleet and classical and has an subtle, honest emotional range. You can hear shades of the quick music of the Sixth Symphony (composed around the same time in the late 1930s) in the last two movements.
Tchaikovsky's Second Quartet was played even better, but I just find this piece to be an absolute sleeper. It's like a casserole of modestly searching romantic tunes, some cripsy garnish, and a whole lot of blandly creamy filler. You take your serving and express polite thanks for it afterwards. I wish it was more my taste: this was performed spectacularly, just the way you'd want it.
The Quartet's encore was the last movement of Haydn's "Lark" Quartet, which being (a) shorter, (b) faster, and (c) lighter, made me a lot happier. Hope that's not too Top 90 of me.
The opening work was the first quartet by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, who died at 20 (in 1826) while he was developing into a promising composer. "Promising" comes across in the quartet, which has a good amount of personality and zest but hasn't entirely arrived yet. The Quartet sounded less solid for much of this piece for whatever reason.
Tomorrow evening's tentatively planned campus spectator activity of choice: hockey game vs. Harvard. Hopefully will be more of a contest than the football game vs. Harvard.
The Fine Arts Quartet is what I would describe as an "old school" ensemble, though when I ran that by my friend she corrected me to "Russian school," which, okay, is probably more accurate. By "old school" I mean they play with a savory tone and lyrical but measured expressiveness that evokes old LP records playing through big fabric-fronted wooden speakers by the stereo cabinet. Visually they are definitely old school, being four oldish tuxedo-wearing men who play with not much unnecessary physical movement. The music produced has the warmth and authority of a firm handshake.
Shostakovich's Quartet No. 1 was fantastic. Hearing it from an ensemble with this aesthetic made the performance sound authoritative, like this is exactly the sound Shostakovich had in mind when he wrote it -- accommodating that lyrical strength, playing a bit with textures and tone colors. (The quartet's players are all Russian-Jewish, which I'm sure is steering my impression towards "authoritative," too, even if that's a bit glib.) I like this piece a lot -- it's not freighted nearly the same way most of Shostakovich's better-known quartets are, but it's fleet and classical and has an subtle, honest emotional range. You can hear shades of the quick music of the Sixth Symphony (composed around the same time in the late 1930s) in the last two movements.
Tchaikovsky's Second Quartet was played even better, but I just find this piece to be an absolute sleeper. It's like a casserole of modestly searching romantic tunes, some cripsy garnish, and a whole lot of blandly creamy filler. You take your serving and express polite thanks for it afterwards. I wish it was more my taste: this was performed spectacularly, just the way you'd want it.
The Quartet's encore was the last movement of Haydn's "Lark" Quartet, which being (a) shorter, (b) faster, and (c) lighter, made me a lot happier. Hope that's not too Top 90 of me.
The opening work was the first quartet by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, who died at 20 (in 1826) while he was developing into a promising composer. "Promising" comes across in the quartet, which has a good amount of personality and zest but hasn't entirely arrived yet. The Quartet sounded less solid for much of this piece for whatever reason.
Tomorrow evening's tentatively planned campus spectator activity of choice: hockey game vs. Harvard. Hopefully will be more of a contest than the football game vs. Harvard.
1 Comments:
I heard the Emerson Quartet play the first eight Shostakovich quartets in a series of concerts earlier this year and what jumped out at me most was the lyricism of the first four quartets in contrast with the others. They're not without humor or acidity but I think they have a more straightforwardly earnest expressive quality than his later chamber works. The E minor piano trio is similar. In concerts they actually reminded me more than anything else of the slow movements from his fifth and seventh symphonies.
In the fifth quartet (about contemporaneous with the tenth symphony) I first hear the inwardness and curdled nostalgia that defines Shostakovich's mature chamber music for me taking over. Especially in their sunnier moments, those later quartets seem almost to be composed in the past tense, looking back over a span of years; but the first four quartets seem very much in the present.
It's somewhat strange to read/write about Shostakovich's chamber music while listening to the Beach Boys' disco rendition of "Here Comes the Night".
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