San Francisco Classical Voice

In a program pitting past and present starkly against one another, Hungary's Keller Quartet made its San Francisco debut Friday night. Its program consisted of selections from Bach's Art of the Fugue, along with the music of their Hungarian compatriot György Kurtág, at age 74 one of that country's greatest living composers. This was a program that gave much to the audience, in an unconventional way. There were no selections from the standard repertoire, no Romantic gestures, and no encores, despite the appreciative audience at Herbst. Instead, we were simply brought deep into the worlds of both composers through the ensemble's ego-less devotion.

The choice to interweave the music of the two composers throughout the program was in keeping with Kurtág's sensibility. Wound together with Bach, Kurtág's music is often openly concerned with its relationship to the past. It frequently contains quotes from and dedications to colleagues or predecessors. An emblematic choice for this program, Ligatura/Hommage à Bach literally tied his sensibility to that of the older composer.

With its probing and serious collective personality, the quartet presented this austere program in a fittingly intense, almost somber manner. Asking that applause be held until the end of each half, they never interrupted their collective focus with any nods to showmanship. Beginning with Bach, they gradually unfolded much, though not all, of his final work. The first three contrapuncti from the set (Bach chose contrapunctus over fugue as his preferred title in this collection) were handled in a restrained manner, with dynamics and tone color carefully balanced and more overt expression reserved for the end of this set. They concluded the concert's first half (following Kurtág's 12 Microludes) with Contrapuncti IV, VI, and IX, this time playing more boldly, searching for, and finding, the elevated glory within this music.

The 12 Microludes were an appropriate choice to counter the Bach and also to introduce a composer little known to American audiences. Kurtág acknowledges Webern as perhaps his primary influence. And like Webern, many of his pieces are collections of very short movements. With an aesthetic that mirrors the Baroque concern for concentrated affect, each of the Microludes encapsulates a single mood. Kurtág aims to bring forth his chosen feeling as succinctly and intensely as possible, with most movements lasting less than a minute. He is also deeply aware of the possibilities of strings, ideal instruments for his sometimes-stringent aesthetic. With great skill and focus, the Keller brought out the work's many textures, from harsh tremolos to whispering, muted passages. While each Microlude holds a different character, the overriding mood of this work is dark, even bleak. And the quartet conveyed the composer's intentions with chilling authority.

A good portion of the program's second half was given over to smaller ensembles drawn from the quartet. Two of the canons from the Art of the Fugue were performed as violin and cello duos by first violinist András Keller and cellist Judit Szabó. In both these works and in the pieces for the full quartet, a growing boldness and richness of sound entered the playing, continuing the momentum of the first half. While this approach sometimes seemed limiting at the concert's beginning, it contributed to a powerful emotional buildup as the program neared its close.

Two of Kurtág's brief works for string trio were included, Ligatura/Hommage á Bach and Perpetuum Mobile. The former work was filled with beautiful counterpoint, moving freely from diatonic passages to harsh tone clusters. His Aus der Ferne III, for full quartet, explored brittle textures played against a repeating pizzicato C in the cello.

The Keller made a brilliant programming choice in preceding Bach's Contrapunctus XIV, the final, unfinished capstone to the Art of the Fugue, with Kurtág's Officium Breve in Memoriam Andreae Szervánszky. Written in memory of a fellow Hungarian composer, the work quotes and varies Szervánszky's music in about half of its fifteen short movements. At its center, Kurtág inserts the entire final canon of Webern's Op. 31, honoring that composer's influence on both Hungarians by repeating his final completed work.

Webern's chromaticism and Szervánszky's diatonic writing seem to vie for dominance throughout, until the Officium Breve ends, stunningly, with a movement subtitled Arioso Interroto. As a parallel to the Webern quote, Kurtág inserts the opening to Szervánszky's beautiful Serenade for Strings. In another parallel, this time to the Art of the Fugue, Kurtág leaves this work unresolved, cutting the serenade off in the middle of a developing phrase. In the midst of a golden age of string quartet writing, this piece stands out as a contemporary masterwork. The Keller conveyed its mercurial shifts and final poignancy with feeling.

Perhaps the evening's most remarkable moment came at its ending. In Kurtág's Ligatura, for two violins, the two instruments played a simple, note-against-note chorale at a faint whisper. Just as they had all night, the players drew us in deeper with their own devotion and attention. In the Keller Quartet's playing, everything, even a whisper, is important.

(Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.)

©2000 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved