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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
March 2, 2007
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Postcards From America By Jeff Rosenfeld
It may be, as cellist Jennifer Kloetzel suggested at Friday's Cypress Quartet concert, that Antonin Dvorák's famous Quartet Op. 96, "The American," is a postcard to home. The composer wrote the quartet while temporarily working in the United States, and it is steeped in the rhythms and melodies of his native Bohemia as much as it is inspired by the homegrown music of this continent, and in particular of Native Americans.
Dvorák's most popular quartet certainly conveys some homesickness. Perhaps his encounters in the Czech settlement in Spillville, Iowa, triggered such emotions. If it is a postcard, however, the quartet is jammed with conflicting asides scribbled around the margins and sprawling into the address space and stamp box in the corner. The music is imbued with a conflict of emotions and impressions typical of travel (and of life).
Cypress String Quartet The Cypress Quartet's performance, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, was gentle-toned and elegantly balanced. It featured beautiful solo work by each member and confident ensemble unanimity, yet it reduced the cultural contradictions by muting Dvorák's brash, slashing Bohemian rhythms and offering a minimal palette of attack and color. The real postcard — or series of postcards — on this concert, however, was the premiere of Daniel Asia's Third String Quartet ("The Seer"). The new Asia quartet is part of the ongoing Call and Response series, in which the Cypress Quartet has been commissioning composers to respond to the example of a major repertoire piece — in this case, the Dvorák that was played in the first half of the program. Asia was a good choice for this assignment, as he is well known for integrating jazz and pop influences. He zeroed in on Dvorák's characteristic use of the American vernacular to fashion a fresh chamber piece that is both accessible and unusual. In Asia's quartet, the vernacular was not Native American music but, rather, jazz again, yet of a kind much different than I had encountered before in his music. Here, the rhythms were generally complex and halting, like spoken language. The lack of flowing melody and the freedom from square phrasing produced a "scat" feeling, particularly in the first and last of the seven movements.
Despite this unorthodox melodic treatment, the most noteworthy feature of the music was its surprising severity. A constricting seriousness pervaded the odd-numbered movements, in which the four players generally moved in unison, without counterpoint. Balancing this were brief, even-numbered movements with more songful material or, in the case of the sixth, a light, skipping tune. This alternating structure of single-minded pieces — monologues and songs — made the quartet seem like a volley of short epigrams, of the "Having an OK time, send money!" variety typical of travel postcards. In retrospect, the Dvorák quartet seemed like a full-blown special issue of National Geographic. Hence, also, the nickname of Asia's piece. After crafting the quartet, Asia, who teaches at the University of Arizona, says he encountered Arthur Gottlieb's painting The Seer and detected in it a kindred structure. This seems apt, for the painting is a subdivided canvas of small, iconic panels with no evident narrative flow but, presumably, a cumulative effect through juxtaposed symbols. That simple, clear construction, yet enigmatic content, as well as a restricted palette of earth tones and black, all helped Gottlieb represent a New Yorker's sojourn in Arizona and his encounter with Southwest Native culture. Not surprisingly, the painting relates well to Asia's reduction of a string quartet to basic building blocks, with only minimal developmental activity and counterargument. I think of the fifth movement, for instance: After a few swooping gestures by the cello, none of the instruments asserts a consistent, leading role in the harmonies — much in contrast to the Dvorák, in which everyone seems to take a commanding turn as melodist. The movement ends in a gently rocking, pensive mood. In all, the new quartet has a calm, grounded feel that yields pleasures more on reflection than anything else. It may take more time for it to grow in my estimation. As if to underscore the foreignness of Asia's new creation, the Cypress programmed Charles Tomlinson Griffes' Two Sketches for a String Quartet Based on Indian Themes. These two trifles — based on a Chippewa farewell song and a Hopi dance and lullaby — featured some exotically beautiful, wistful tunes, as well as a chance for this ingratiating ensemble to show its purity of tone.
(Jeff Rosenfeld is an oboist with the Kensington Symphony, West County Winds, and Pacific Wind Ensemble. He is a freelance science journalist and author of the recent book Eye of the Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards.)
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