Stay in the Loop
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free.
Chamber Music Society with Mitsuko Uchida
Tom Purdom
Dancing at the end of time
TOM PURDOM
The Recruiting Dance takes its name from its use by the recruiting parties the Hapsburg army dispatched to the villages of Hungary. It was originally a Hungarian folk dance, the Verbunko, and Gypsy bands would play it to entice young men into signing up. According to some accounts, the village boys would start dancing when they heard their traditional music, only to discover that participation signaled acceptance. They had joined the army merely by responding to the music.
Bartok’s Contrasts trio opens with one of the more famous examples of a verbunko movement. Violinist Soovin Kim and clarinetist Martin Frost made the right decision when they elected to play it standing up. This was one time when a little bouncing around fitted the spirit of the piece.
I’ve heard Soovin Kim play Paganini, Vivaldi and Ives, and he always connects with the music’s underlying spirit, whatever it may be. In this case, Kim embellished the liveliness with the irony that always surrounds military recruiting.
Bartok’s trio plays several contrasts beside the different sounds of the three instruments. It also contrasts the difference between two kinds of clarinets, the sound of two different kinds of violin tuning, and the mood of the deeply contemplative middle movement and the frenzied outer movements. The weak performances I’ve heard tend to sound dry. This was one of the best— and definitely not dry.
A composer in prison
Contrasts is something of a pièce d’occasion. It was written for an original performance that featured Bartok, violinist Joseph Szigeti and an American virtuoso named Benny Goodman. Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is also a pièce d’occasion, but the occasion was somewhat less festive: The composer’s imprisonment in Stalag 8-A at the beginning of World War II. The odd composition of the ensemble— piano, clarinet, violin and cello— reflects the happenstance of the musicians on call.
Bernard Jacobson was kind enough to include Messiaen’s complete description of each section in the program notes. I didn’t really appreciate Messiaen’s achievement until I attended a performance that included that important bit of information. You don’t have to follow the program in the notes every time you hear Quartet For the End of Time, but I think you need to know what the composer had in mind, in the same way you should understand the general drift of each section of the text when you hear a concert mass.
Messiaen’s text is a passage from Revelations that describes a mighty angel announcing the end of time. The end referred to is not a point, but the end of time itself— a passage into a timeless state. It’s an apocalyptic vision underlined by the apocalyptic circumstances in which it was written. As with all of Messiaen, you don’t have to be a Catholic to share his feelings.
Birds sing, sirens shriek
Messiaen wrung everything he could out of his limited forces. Birds squeak on the violin and warble on the clarinet (you can’t have a Messiaen piece without birds). The steady tick of the piano supports a long instrumental vocalise on the piano and cello. The clarinet plays a series of crescendos that begin in total silence and end, in some examples, in the shriek of a siren. The four oddly assorted instruments somehow manage to imitate the trombones that announce the end. A beautiful, slow cello melody spreads grace across the world.
The foursome assembled for this performance included one of the world’s great pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, and her younger companions proved themselves worthy colleagues. The Quartet for the End of the Season placed a memorable period at the end of the Chamber Music Society’s 2007-2008 schedule.
TOM PURDOM
The Recruiting Dance takes its name from its use by the recruiting parties the Hapsburg army dispatched to the villages of Hungary. It was originally a Hungarian folk dance, the Verbunko, and Gypsy bands would play it to entice young men into signing up. According to some accounts, the village boys would start dancing when they heard their traditional music, only to discover that participation signaled acceptance. They had joined the army merely by responding to the music.
Bartok’s Contrasts trio opens with one of the more famous examples of a verbunko movement. Violinist Soovin Kim and clarinetist Martin Frost made the right decision when they elected to play it standing up. This was one time when a little bouncing around fitted the spirit of the piece.
I’ve heard Soovin Kim play Paganini, Vivaldi and Ives, and he always connects with the music’s underlying spirit, whatever it may be. In this case, Kim embellished the liveliness with the irony that always surrounds military recruiting.
Bartok’s trio plays several contrasts beside the different sounds of the three instruments. It also contrasts the difference between two kinds of clarinets, the sound of two different kinds of violin tuning, and the mood of the deeply contemplative middle movement and the frenzied outer movements. The weak performances I’ve heard tend to sound dry. This was one of the best— and definitely not dry.
A composer in prison
Contrasts is something of a pièce d’occasion. It was written for an original performance that featured Bartok, violinist Joseph Szigeti and an American virtuoso named Benny Goodman. Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is also a pièce d’occasion, but the occasion was somewhat less festive: The composer’s imprisonment in Stalag 8-A at the beginning of World War II. The odd composition of the ensemble— piano, clarinet, violin and cello— reflects the happenstance of the musicians on call.
Bernard Jacobson was kind enough to include Messiaen’s complete description of each section in the program notes. I didn’t really appreciate Messiaen’s achievement until I attended a performance that included that important bit of information. You don’t have to follow the program in the notes every time you hear Quartet For the End of Time, but I think you need to know what the composer had in mind, in the same way you should understand the general drift of each section of the text when you hear a concert mass.
Messiaen’s text is a passage from Revelations that describes a mighty angel announcing the end of time. The end referred to is not a point, but the end of time itself— a passage into a timeless state. It’s an apocalyptic vision underlined by the apocalyptic circumstances in which it was written. As with all of Messiaen, you don’t have to be a Catholic to share his feelings.
Birds sing, sirens shriek
Messiaen wrung everything he could out of his limited forces. Birds squeak on the violin and warble on the clarinet (you can’t have a Messiaen piece without birds). The steady tick of the piano supports a long instrumental vocalise on the piano and cello. The clarinet plays a series of crescendos that begin in total silence and end, in some examples, in the shriek of a siren. The four oddly assorted instruments somehow manage to imitate the trombones that announce the end. A beautiful, slow cello melody spreads grace across the world.
The foursome assembled for this performance included one of the world’s great pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, and her younger companions proved themselves worthy colleagues. The Quartet for the End of the Season placed a memorable period at the end of the Chamber Music Society’s 2007-2008 schedule.
Sign up for our newsletter
All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.
