|
CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
November 23, 2004
|
By Heuwell Tircuit
Emphasizing their special merit, the Cypress String Quartet offered three American works Tuesday evening in the Green Room of the War Memorial Building. Presented as part of the Composers Inc. series, the oldest of these pieces is only 19 years old; the other two, commissions composed in 2003. In the latter category, the program opened with Jeffery Cotton's Quartet No. 1 and Jennifer Higdon's Impressions. Following intermission, there was the large Quartet No. 2 of Daniel Asia.
The Cypress Quartet has made a habit of commissioning new music, but with a most unusual difference. The composers are somehow to reflect two other quartets from the standard repertory, so that the two old and the one new can form a program as a standard, a new, and a second standard work. Cotton chose Haydn's Quartet No. 41, Op. 33, No. 5 and Mozart's No. 15, K. 421. Higdon went Impressionistic, selecting the Debussy and Ravel Quartets. Asia, who's work was commissioned by the Ohio State Arts Council, faced no such restriction. As encore, the Quartet played the gentle Lullaby movement of Don Coleman's Quartet, from another of their commissions.
Perhaps just because he did not face mirroring anyone, Asia's Second Quartet proved to be the freshest and strongest composition of the event. He spun three distinctive movements from a set of eight variations on a three-part theme. The theme and first four related variations form his first movement; the next three, his second movement; and the large final dance variation, his finale. This concept is not entirely new, for we have assorted orchestral pieces known as Symphonic Variations. Rachmaninoff's “Paganini” Rhapsody and, in the broader sense, Bartók's Second Violin Concerto are essentially variation sets grouped into movements.
On the other hand, Asia's deployment struck me as fresh and strongly meshed into a logical and utterly comprehensible whole. Clearly he is a savvy composer, which one expects from someone with his academic credentials. He currently heads the composition department of the University of Arizona and, before that, taught at the Oberlin Conservatory. His idiom is throughly up-to-date without going over the top. In a way, he reflects the advances of Elliott Carter and Gunther Schuller, plus an occasional genuflection toward Anton Webern, though I heard nothing approaching any serious reference to those composers. Asia is obviously aware of their accomplishments, but he is a composer with his own profile — and a fine one it is, too. Higdon, who teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music, set her work in four movements, each with a descriptive title: “Bright Palette,” “Quiet Art,” “To the Point” and “Noted Canvas.” Indeed, the music seemed a reflection more of Impressionist painting techniques than of musical style. Basically conservative, her idiom stands somewhere between that of Darius Milhaud and the tender side of early David Diamond. While the textures were nicely written, especially in the pizzicato points of “To the Point,” the basic lack of interesting melodic invention shrouded the whole piece. That same problem also proved the downfall of Cotton's Quartet. Again, the four movements comprise a set of variations: 18 in this case. The players each had a chance to shine in fairly large soloistic passages amid Cotton's character movements. Yet the general sound was retrograded to the 1940s and early 50's Americana school, à la Walter Piston. The larger problem, however, was the lack of arch. Cotton's Quartet didn't scan for the ear. The four Cypress players are all top-class musicians: violinists Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violist Ethan Filner and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel. A few minor intonation slips turned up in the opening work but, on the whole, these musicians played with verve, style and a vibrancy that filled the room with strong, warm sound. At a time when so much of the field has retreated into the bosom of the top 40, their courage in fostering new works with such determination marks them as worthy of national pride.
(Heuwell Tircuit, composer, performer and writer, was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the SF Chronicle, previously for the Chicago American and Asahi Evening News.)
|
Cypress Quartet