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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
March 29, 2004
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By Benjamin Frandzel
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble continues to craft the
kind of programs from which many other chamber groups
could learn. I often wish all-contemporary concerts
would have some older music to give greater
perspective; and, needless to say, there's the tired
sense of hearing a program that would have seemed old
a hundred years ago. At their concert last Monday in
the Green Room, the Left Coast players chose a
typically thoughtful balance of old and new, bringing
equal ability and commitment to music spanning five
centuries, allowing different eras to speak to each
other, each piece offering humor, complexity and
personality.
The evening began with Moritz Eggert's Pong for
flute, clarinet, piano and string quartet. This young
German composer's piece won the group's 2003
Composition Contest, and the ensemble deserves credit for choosing a work far afield from the typical competition winner. Instead of being a flashy
show-off piece for either the performers or composer (as could have been said of some of the Left Coast's previous competition choices),
this work is smart, original, and very funny.
The title refers to the computer game of yore, in
which two sliding rectangles on either side of the
screen bounce a ball back and forth at what, by today's hyperactive standards, seems a soporific pace. Eggert evoked the experience by placing the winds at either end of the ensemble, trading single notes,
which were "carried" to the other end of the ensemble
by means of sliding string glissandos, one after the
other, and a sweeping hand clicking on the front of
the piano keys.
Having played this game as a kid, I can testify that Eggert got the lumpy rhythm of it just right, with the exchanges soon moving along at the faster rate that occasionally occurred in the game itself. Novelty aside, Eggert found a method of development that grew organically from the opening conceit, as the exchanges of notes spread through the entire ensemble and grew more rapid and varied. As harmony entered the mix, Eggert revealed that he has a fine ear for it, not to mention the ability to use changing instrumental texture as an animating feature of the music. György Ligeti's String Quartet No.1, “Metamorphoses Nocturnes,” followed in a performance that was richly expressive from the opening note. This is an early work, finished in 1954, and far more redolent of Bartók's influence and Hungarian music in general than the music this composer has written from the late '50s onward. Still, many of his special traits are present: the ability to take each of his ideas as far as possible and to make the music really move while doing so, not to mention his unexpected humor. As with Ligeti's later work, there is a sense that this music holds many inner identities, all compressed into one creative utterance. The piece evolves from a mournful, kind of anguished lyricism, to joking hints of a waltz, and goes on many other tangents, pushing ideas to extremes or just touching upon them, then changing pace at a moment's notice. This is a difficult piece to pull off, being a single movement lasting over twenty minutes. The ensemble's string players — violinists Anna Presler and Phyllis Kamrin, violist Kurt Rohde and cellist Leighton Fong — handled the work's many sudden shifts in mood, pacing and technique flawlessly and fully inhabited its expressive world. A particularly luminous moment came near the end, when a single mournful violin sang over rapidly-arpeggiated harmonics produced by the other three instruments, forming a beautiful and delicate web of sound.
Given the program's stated theme of dissonance (a little silly, despite the concluding presence of Mozart's "Dissonant" Quartet), it was only natural to include some Renaissance vocal music, performed sans voices by flute and string quartet. Along with a lesson in the development of the madrigal, the selections provided a nice sense of regional styles. There was the close imitation of Josquin's beautiful ”Faulte d'argent,” and the long, elegant lines of Monteverdi's ”Cruda Amarilla” following William Byrd's sprightly “Though Amaryllis Dance.” Texts were included in the program, and Juan del Encina's ”Triste Espana,” a lament for his nation, proved to be sadly current. Mozart's "Dissonant" Quartet in C Major ended things nicely. There was a quality of evolving discovery to the remarkable opening that gives the piece its name, and an unhurried radiance to the Allegro movement that followed. Each movement shared the same thorough musicality and balanced contributions by the entire quartet, bringing the evening to a deeply satisfying close.
(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 studesition at San Francisco State University.)
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Moritz Eggert