ClevelandClassical
030111ObJACKQRev
Review
The JACK Quartet at Oberlin (February 22)
by Daniel Hathaway
Tuesday, February 22 presented a tough choice between concerts by two fine string quartets: Cuarteto Casals at Fairmount Temple Auditorium (Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Mozart, Kurtág & Beethoven) or the JACK Quartet at Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall (György Ligeti, Aaron Cassidy, Lewis Nielson & Iannis Xenakis).
In the end, the unusual nature of the JACK’s program won out (though a program change found the Casals also performing a Ligeti work that evening!) The JACK (which takes its moniker from the first initials of its players, John Pickford Richards, viola, Ari Streisfeld, violin, Christopher Otto, violin & Kevin McFarland, cello) played its concert as part of a mini-residency at Oberlin during which the group held master classes and lectured on the extended string techniques for which the quartet, formed at the Eastman School and dedicated exclusively to the performance of new music, is famous.
Unlike most string quartet programs, where a contemporary work is normally buffered by the comforting strains of 18th and 19th century masterworks, and even unlike some JACK Quartet programs, where more challenging music is relieved by arrangements of older, avant-garde-in-their-day composers like Machaut and Gesualdo, the Oberlin concert was an intense exploration of the music of two modern giants and two living composers which brought the largish, mostly student audience into an entirely different sound world where most of the familiar rules and procedures of well-behaved music no longer apply.
Ligeti’s second quartet (1968) promises and delivers a variety of moods (its movements are labeled “Allegro nervoso”, “Sostenuto, molto calmo”, “Come un meccanismo di precisione”, “Presto furioso – Brutale – Tumultoso” and “Allegro con delicatezza”). The arresting, initial plunk was followed by nearly inaudible whistling sounds, violent outbursts and contrasting murmurs; the first movement ended with a superbly calculated diminuendo on a descending scale. In the second, a soft, tortured unison expanded into fleeting motives, scratches from the first violin and interrupting gestures from all four players. The JACKs put down their bows for the machine-like third movement to create soft pizzicati interspersed with louder plucks in complex rhythmic patterns. Bows came out at the end for upward glissandi. Big chordal structures introduced the fourth movement, which dissipated into more murmurs. (Here a pause while the cellist dealt with broken bow hairs). Tiny solos and a wistful, near-melody emerged from soft murmurings at the beginning of the last movement, which then turned dramatic only to end with whispers. The quartet almost reverently observed dramatic silences between movements, sustaining the tension of this fascinating piece until the last moment had passed.
Aaron Cassidy, an American composer currently living and teaching in England, completed his second quartet in 2010 — soon enough ago that it came in the form of large, loose pages that had to be put back in order before the quartet could start (a bit of humor was had during this process). Here we heard a veritable catalogue of extended string techniques — including some quite original ways of playing stringed instruments, with bows all over the strings from one end to the other, and the cellist actually bowing the upper ranges of the fingerboard behind his neck. Obviously a rhythmically complicated work, members of the quartet took turns marking the beats with motions of their instruments or nods of their heads. Though perhaps a bit long for the material (it became a bit repetitive), the piece was brilliantly played and highly entertaining to watch and hear.
Oberlin faculty composer Lewis Nielson asked even more from the JACK Quartet in his Le Journal du corps, also written in 2010 and on commission from the group. Toward the end of the lengthy work, the players hummed, sang sotto voco in parts (and voiced sibilants in French), creating a haunting soundscape. Before that, the work began almost too subtly for the acoustics of Warner Hall with a succession of minimalist sounds and seemingly random events. A passacaglia-like gesture from the cello was accompanied by buzzy, scampery sounds from the upper strings. A chorale, a scherzo, and a viola solo ensued before the humming/singing mysteriously appeared. Again, the JACKs were on top of every technique Nielson threw at them and played (and sang!) the work with supreme devotion.
Xenakis’ Tetras (“Four”) has become a signature piece for the JACK Quartet. The group has recorded it along with the composer’s three other quartet works, but you really have to see this piece to appreciate its kinetic as well as musical appeal. The whole work makes a strong impression from the striking violin solo that introduces its single movement. Rude string noises that can only be described as grunts come off sounding strangely beautiful in these eight hands. Far more than a collection of riveting sounds and sonorities, it’s quite apparent that Xenakis was an engineer (who worked for the architecht Le Corbusier): there’s an underlying structure and a broad rhythmic plan that gives great strength to the music. The JACKs’ perfectly coordinated jabs, siren cries, crescendos and diminuendos again demonstrated their masterful control and ensemble. What began with a bang ended with a whisper in a superb, atmospheric conclusion.
Hardly a breath was to be heard in the audience during the entire program, so concentrated were the listeners, though there was certainly a collective exhaling at the end of the Xenakis before the crowd gave the quartet a rousing ovation.
An Oberlin press release quoted Lewis Nielson’s opinion of the JACK Quartet: “Frankly, they are pretty far beyond awesome”. We’ll second that!
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