Brentano Quartet's Frank premiere

The sure-fire 'sandwich' formula

BEERI MAOLEM

New music is in an interesting place nowadays. Chamber groups and orchestras alike feel obliged to feature a little-known piece or something new, but it’s always buttressed by well-established masterpieces, lest the challenge-piece scare the audience away. It's a deal: "We'll play the Beethoven you know and love, but you'll have to listen to this great new piece we just discovered." More and more, audiences are finding that the new music being forced upon them isn’t that scary, and in many instances can even outshine the weathered warhorses.

Consider the Brentano Quartet’s recent concert: a Beethoven sandwich with a delicious Philadelphia premiere in the middle.

The “challenge piece” in this concert was Gabriela Lena Frank's Quijotadas, a fascinating tone poem for string quartet that provided as much fun and enchantment as challenge. The piece, composed of five short character pieces, paints musical pictures in the ever popular Spanish genre, an idiom in which Frank is very well practiced: She is at home with the familiar Iberian rhythms and tonalities but distorts them just enough to give a the music a modern edge.

The first movement is a brief dialogue between the two violins. With the unfulfilled expectation of the full quartet sound, the high-pitched echoing sounds provide an unsettling and intriguing introduction, drawing the listener in. The next movement featured guitar-like pizzicato dances, very Spanish in lilt and color— but there were always a few extra layers of dissonance, commentary and surprise that distinguished the music from sounding like Albinez, De Falla, or one of the French-Spanish imitators.

Program notes without techno-blabber

The guidance provided in the well-worded program notes added another dimension to the music. Program notes, especially when written by composers about their own pieces, are often filled with musical techno-blabber. But two or three descriptive sentences about each movement— evoking a scene from Cervantes' Don Quixote, describing an old Spanish instrument, or recalling a setting from the Spanish countryside— truly aided the appreciation of the music in this instance.

Frank herself was present at the concert, and the audience warmly received her piece. This demonstration that classical music is alive— that fresh new music can be original and challenging yet also engaging and entertaining—is in itself heartwarming and hope-inspiring.

Two extremes of Beethoven

As for the Beethovens, they were played with the energy and musical sensitivity that we should expect from the Brentano Quartet, one of the country's leading string quartets. Opening the concert with Beethoven's Op. 16 Piano Quartet and ending with his Op. 127 E-flat major Quartet, the sandwich displayed the two extremes of Beethoven's artistic styles: from the fresh classical-Romantic style on one hand to the transcendent late style on the other.

Pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn provided excellent accompaniment with elegant phrasing and delicate balance. For my ears, it might have been a trifle too elegant and delicate. The great hallmarks of Beethoven's early style are the boisterous interruptions and sudden inexplicable changes in dynamics that infuse the music with such exhilarating energy. But the ensemble chose a more restrained approach. The balance was very fine, as violinist Mark Steinberg played with a mellifluous ease, often glad to yield the spotlight to his colleagues, and never overbearing (an uncommon virtue among first violinists).

To be picky: In the very beginning, its extremely tricky sixteenth or thirty-second pick-up notes weren’t quite together, although eventually they settled together. True equality and dialogue pervaded the whole piece, and special kudos are in order for violist Misha Amory, who dispatched his solos, especially in the second movement, with rare viola richness. His sound avoided that metallic nasal quality that’s sometimes heard even among the finest violists— an accomplishment that probably credits the fineness of both the viola and the violist.

Old, grand, but still vibrant

As for Beethoven's Opus 127, this piece feels old and grand, but at the same time it feels vibrant and full of life, not unlike his early pieces. The meditative grandeur comes with the Maestoso opening chords and the blissfully never-ending second movement. The vitality and freshness comes through in the playfulness of the allegro and the scherzo's tricks (think of Beethoven as a deaf old man who retained his Haydnian sense of humor).

The Brentano chose to play the famous Maestoso section with an unconventionally speedy tempo. While this choice might have diminished the majestic expansiveness of the introduction, in exchange it provided simplicity and avoided excessive dramatics. This approach suited the piece well: Melodrama is more suited to Beethoven’s middle and later Romantic periods, while restrained coolness fits his late works, which hearken back to their classical roots.

The Brentano Quartet dispatched the wide varieties and endless wonders of this piece with professionalism and all of their remaining energy, from the loving cello sound of Nina Lee (who’d just had a baby!) to second violinist Serena Canin's well-blended support. Canin visibly enjoyed the second violin part.