And, while much of the music is jaunty fun, the introspective passages – the short, questioning pauses of the first movement, and the lyrical opening of the finale chief among them – were played with warmth and tenderness. Its athleticism posed them no challenges: from cellist Christopher Costanza’s opening, rhythmic phrase to the cool, serene C-major final cadence, this was a performance that slipped into a groove early and never fell out of it. On Sunday afternoon, the SLSQ made spirited work of the piece. Now, whether or not the Second Quartet adds up to more than the sum of its parts remains, after just one hearing, an open question. Intimations of bluegrass fiddling seem to appear out of the haze of the finale. Sul ponticello articulations crop up unexpectedly. Spiky rhythmic patterns bounce between the players. Throughout, Adams’ fluency regarding writing for the ensemble is on full display. 111, though things quickly ramp up and a jaunty “Energico” leads to a vigorous conclusion. The second starts with a rather expansive elaboration of a theme from the first movement of op. The first is almost entirely extroverted, with a strong pulse underlying its various transformations of the Beethoven excerpts. These references are frequently recognizable in and of themselves, though they often set off in wild and unpredictable directions.Īdams cast the piece in two movements which, together, last about twenty minutes. 110 and 111 piano sonatas and the Diabelli Variations. Like much of his previous music for that ensemble (2007’s First Quartet and 2012’s Absolute Jest), it draws heavily on the example and music of Beethoven’s late period, quoting, in particular, some short phrases drawn from the op. While the latter is an expansive orchestral treatise, full of angular gestures, dense harmonies, and complex rhythmic layerings, the Quartet is, if not simple Adams, then at least fairly straightforward and compact. The Adams Second Quartet could hardly be a more different piece than Scheherazade.2. It shared the bill with two similarly quirky quartets, one by Beethoven and the other by Sibelius. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ) brought his 2014 Second Quartet to Concord Academy for the last concert of the Concord Chamber Music Society’s current season. At the beginning of March, Leila Josefowicz gave a blazing account of his “dramatic symphony” Scheherazade.2 with the Boston Symphony. It’s been a good month if you’re a Boston-area fan of John Adams. Photo: courtesy of Concord Chamber Music Society. Olav Anton Thommessen’s Felix Remix is a filler in every sense of the word.St. That, and perhaps the EngegŠrd’s delicious lightness and occasional breathlessness, are better suited to the quartet aesthetic of Grieg (Ravel’s hero) than to that of Sibelius. Turn to the Sibelius Quartet, and I’m afraid some familiar old problems surface: an Adagio di molto movement that moves too quickly to achieve the suggested tenacity, and some fear of the background patterning in the Vivace, which the quartet seems to want to shape (the way Sibelius projects things on to it means that the players don’t have to). The recording helps, with the right combination of distance and proximity. The EngegŠrd Quartet can do ‘plainness’ too – all-important in Grieg’s music – as witness Jan Clemens Carlsen’s cello solo over his tremolo colleagues in the first movement, full of purity and air. The Romanze collapses into turmoil from its own nonchalance and the stalking pizzicato accompanying passage in the finale is vividly delivered. Emotionally, the ensemble is just as lithe. It’s good to hear Grieg’s utterly individual string quartet played by an ensemble that has an equally distinctive sound – in this case, the EngegŠrd Quartet’s tight blend and Ravelian lightness, so refreshing when the thick textures of Grieg’s score (all that double-stopping) so often weigh it down. Description: A Norwegian ensemble gets right inside Grieg’s singular String Quartet
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